Compliant Savages
by Chatting Airborne
Summary: Vanitas' life is exquisitely manageable until Ventus persuades him into a night of reversed roles, changing the course of their lives. Will Vanitas find the courage to face the monsters of his past, or will he linger in the dark, groping through shocking revelations and heartbreak until they devour him? WARNING: explicit sexuality and violence
1. FSLS

_**•••**_

 _ **Chapter One:**_

 _ **FutureSex/LoveSounds**_

 _ **•••**_

"Hey, only assholes leave their weights out!" Vanitas roared from the reception area at the front of the gym's main floor. The perpetrator in question, a young man with highlighter yellow hair and freckles across the bridge of his flushed nose, whipped around and let out a nervous laugh before picking up his weights and dashing them towards their corresponding rack. "No running," Vanitas added for good measure as the blond disappeared around the corner. Then he snorted and shuffled back through the paperwork he had been given to sign off by his manager, Ansem, a man whose fake tan was so acute he could be accused of sporting blackface. It was amazing he still had skin at all, judging by the amount of years he had to have been dousing it in chemicals to have waist length grey hair. As Vanitas scribbled through the first page and turned to the second, a shadow passed overhead. Two cerulean eyes under a dull blue, shag fringe surveyed him with a piercing glance. Vanitas snorted and cocked his head in greeting before continuing his paperwork. As he moved from form one to two, the being above cleared his throat and leaned in.

"When are you off today?" he asked.

"Nine," Vanitas mumbled. A devilish grin spread across his face as he added, "add and subtract two."

"Seven eleven?" Zexion said flatly. "That was weak."

Vanitas shrugged and mumbled that he'd be picking up booze and condoms. "Cause you know who's coming in at ten, huh?" he added with a wink.

"My mother," Zexion cut in with confidence. There was a moment of silence as Vanitas stared at him in confusion. Zexion's brows furrowed together as he started, "wait-"

"You said it first!" Vanitas cackled with glee. Zexion scowled and hid his blush behind his bangs.

"You're always making mother jokes, if the variable followed the pattern as usual it would culminate…" then he rolled his eyes and said, "then I suppose you're talking about your significant other."

"Nah, I was talking about your mama," Vanitas tried to say coolly. But a snort took him before he could finish. Zexion scoffed and launched himself off the edge of the reception desk in exasperation.

"Not that I needed a follow up on your sex life, anyway," he snapped as he turned.

"Love you too, Sexy-one," Vanitas called behind him. Zexion huffed and stomped off. A buzz sounded at Vanitas' side. When he picked up his phone, he saw two new texts signaled on the home screen. Perking up, he scrolled through his unlock code and pulled up the unread messages.

 _"_ _Hey V Grr :P In at 9:45 instead of 10. Plane is ahead of schedule. Nice lady sat beside me, on way home from seeing her granddaughter, got her number and everything! I think I have a 90 yo pen pal. Lol :D"_

 _"_ _Aren't u gonna say u can't wait 2 c me?"_

 _"_ _? ? ? Isn't it implied"_

 _"_ _Can't wait 2 b in u ;P"_

 _"_ _Huh"_

 _"_ _Huh?"_ Vanitas thought to himself, a little miffed that Ventus had not said some cute uke thing like, _oh noooo u can't say those naughty things V Grrr, u'll make me " " on the plane,_ or something of a comparable nature, with eggplant and water droplet emojis where the word "cum" should have been. "Huh" was at best disinterested, and at worse offended. Vanitas punched in a quick reply and hit send.

 _"_ _Never heard that one before."_

 _"_ _Heard what?"_

 _"_ _Is 'huh' THE future sex/love sound? Guess love really is dead."_

 _"We'll have to find out tonight..."_

Vanitas sat back and put his hand over his mouth in satisfaction. Normally Ventus wasn't so forward, if you could call making vague statements about the near future "forward." When Vanitas glanced up, he saw Zexion glaring at him from behind a pamphlet several feet away. When he nodded and held up his phone, Zexion raised a brow and said, "good tidings?"

"Very good," Vanitas responded.

•••

* * *

 **A/N: Lately I've been thinking about the many possibilities a character like Vanitas offers along with the dearth of stories that have him as a bottom! I always enjoy character role reversals and other surprises in stories, so if you do too, enjoy. Also, I wish I could put emojis in these texts, but ff is stupid about certain character combinations and I can't unicode. T.T someone help me...**


	2. Hermes and Maui

**A/N: vanso, I love your avatar pick. Thanks for reading! Yes, bottomVan is beautiful. Anaid2k17, I will look for you on AO3! Honestly, I don't ready much on AO3 (brutal honesty, I've never read a story on it, lol) but I will have a look if there's bottomVan! Thank you guys for reading a reviewing! Enjoy! Things are going to get dramatic real soon, the story's saved under angst for a reason...**

* * *

 _ **•••**_

 _ **Chapter 2:**_

 _ **Hermes and Maui**_

 _ **•••**_

Vanitas rattled into the parking lot of Seven Eleven in his ancient Jeep like a god of the outback, a chubby, broken tusk of a cigarette hanging from one end of his mouth. As he puffed away and pulled into park, he scanned the shop windows for the fridges and condom shelves. When he got them in sight, he hopped from the driver's seat and sauntered inside, whisking the goods in his arms like a pro. As he veered for the front he passed the sweet aisle and stopped. A fresh pack of airheads lay forlorn underneath bags of junior mints and Reese's pieces. Ventus loved airheads. Vanitas grinned and swiped them up. When he got to the front desk, the man standing behind raised his arms behind his head and cawed in greeting. Vanitas responded with a tip of his metaphorical hat, a bow, and an overdone, Popeye puff of his cigarette. The man behind the desk threw back his head and laughed.

"Vani!" he barked. Vanitas set the booze, condoms, and airheads before him unceremoniously. As the man rang them up, Vanitas asked how he was doing. The man shrugged.

"Ah, so-so," he sighed. "Kiddos tryin' to get me to move closer."

"Bummer," Vanitas said in disinterest.

"Ah, they want to go back to their hometown, but I don't know… it was getting pretty seedy when we left."

"Has it been thoroughly gentrified for your return?" Vanitas drawled slyly. The man at the desk gasped and snapped that it was not that at all.

"I'm talking corruption, man!" he insisted. "Gang activity. Nah, things were getting bad over there. But, I suppose now it's safe enough that people have started moving in with their avocado ice creams, and puppy yoga and shit."

"How do you know about puppy yoga, Cid?" Vanitas asked with a grin.

"Aw, hell, get outa here back to your fella, Vani," Cid scowled in embarrassment. Vanitas cackled and collected his stuff before calling goodbye and slipping through the door.

"You stay outta trouble, ya hear?" Cid bellowed as the door closed with a clang of its bell. Vanitas snickered and slipped back into his Jeep, still nursing his quickly wilting cigarette between his fingers. He took a final drag before stubbing it out at the side of the car. Then he put his key in the ignition and swerved back onto the road. The airport was a forty-minute drive away. When he pulled into the "Arrivals" section and spotted the familiar head of honey blond hair swishing back and forth in consternation, he beeped his horn and pulled in at the pavement side. Once the honey blond caught sight of him he cried in delight and hurried his rollaway towards the Jeep's trunk. Vanitas waited for him to set it in. As the Ventus climbed to his side, buckled up, and slammed the passenger door, Vanitas slipped a new cigarette from his pocket and lit up. As he relished the feeling of the delicate paper between his lips and the sensation of the smoke coating his lungs when he breathed in, he coughed and asked how his favorite bottom was doing. Ventus scowled in disgust and muttered that he wasn't a bottom.

"Oh?" snorted Vanitas in amusement, ripping into the exit lane from arrivals without signaling. As Ventus yelped and shoved his foot into an imaginary brake at his side, Vanitas cackled high-pitched laughter.

"Vanitascouldyoupleasedrivelikeahumanbeingandnotananimal," Ventus pleaded in one, gusting gulp. Vanitas pinched his cigarette between his fingers and blew out a dainty puff, trilling in a terrible English accent that he was entirely Ventus'.

"Then act like it," Ventus growled. Just to scare him, Vanitas swerved into the next lane.

"Vanitas!" Ventus roared. Vanitas grinned and muttered that the guy behind was tailgating. "Just letting him pass on." Then for good measure he swerved into the right lane again. By this time Ventus had shut his eyes and began to chant under his breath. Vanitas rolled his eyes and chuckled, slowing and smoothing until the car meshed in with the rest of the highway traffic. It took twenty minutes for Ventus to calm down, and by that time, they were over halfway to Vanitas' shitty apartment. Vanitas thought he saw Ventus scowl at the rising complex out of the corner of his eye when they came upon it. In irritation he chucked the seven eleven bag into the blond's lap. For a moment Ven stared at the plastic in confusion. Then he asked what the fuck Vanitas was throwing things at him for.

"Because I'm dumb enough to buy you presents," Vanitas snapped. Ventus perked up immediately; ravaging open the bag with excited swipes until he saw the airhead logo beneath his fingers. As Vanitas grinned in anticipation and asked how Ventus liked them, Ventus held the airheads up to the light from the streetlamps outside the window in disdain.

"Is this what you consider a present?" he asked. Vanitas' cigarette dropped from his mouth into his lap. As he yelped and jumped up in his seat, Ventus slipped his hand between the ravenette's legs and snatched the fag up, brushing off the ashes with elaborate strokes. When his strokes lingered between Vanitas' legs, the ravenette shimmied away with a snort and shook his head.

"You bash my gifts and then fondle my dick?" he asked. Ventus stared at him with a strange glance. Usually the boy was simpering and submissive. He specialized in a pout he had proudly learned from Ariana Grande, who he claimed was his "Spirit Animal." But now the chilly glance he used to examine the full expanse of Vanitas' body was downright calculating. It had the gall to make Vanitas uncomfortable. With a scowl he used his left foot to press away from the seat below him and scratch the back of his head against the Jeep ceiling. Ventus reached forward and patted him down, scratching his head for him. The blond's hand lingered at the back of his neck, pinching and pulling at the short hairs lining the nape. Vanitas shrugged him off with a scoff, muttering that he was acting weird.

"Usually it's me accosting you in the car," he drawled. "You know it's unsafe to assault the driver."

Ventus sniggered and ran his fingers through his hair. Vanitas stole a quick glance at him and grinned. He was so sexy when he leaned against the window. His face smushed up against the glass and his eyes glazed over in fantasy. Usually. This time, he caught Vanitas staring in an instant and matched his gaze with an intense, wanting glare. Vanitas raised his eyebrows in challenge. Ventus smirked. It made blood rush between Vanitas' legs. With a hiss he spread them apart and shook his head again.

"You're really acting funny tonight, Ven," he whispered.

"I just never noticed how cute you were, V Grr," Ventus responded in a cool voice. Vanitas nearly swerved the car over the curb as he turned into the car park behind the apartments.

"Ooh hoo," he cooed as he fanned himself in amusement, sucking in the remainder of his cigarette with veiled discomfort. "Will I get raped behind the trashcans if I get out of the car too soon?"

"Only if you want me to," Ven chirped with a giggle. Vanitas' shoulders relaxed. There was his boy. Ventus grew silent and sullen as he parked the car. Vanitas asked if Ventus was going to start his airheads.

"I thought you realized I don't eat that shit anymore," Ven muttered. Vanitas' cigarette fell out of his mouth for the second time that night. Ventus collected it again as Vanitas yelped and curled his hips away from his seat bottom, but this time the blond wrenched open the passenger door and ground out the stub with his shoe. Vanitas stared at the savagery in shock. When Ventus shoved the seven eleven bag into the back seat, undid his seatbelt, and climbed towards Vanitas like a panther, the boy yelped and lowered in amused confusion. Before he could make a smart remark, Ven swallowed his face, biting and snarling down his neck like a feral animal. As what was formally stiffness bloomed into a full-blown erection and pressed through Vanitas' jeans against Ventus' thigh, the blond grabbed Vanitas in his left hand and squeezed until the dark boy gasped. Feeling threatened, Vanitas grabbed back with equal vigor, making the blond snarl into the skin of his neck. When Vanitas tried making eye contact through a dominant smirk, he realized that Ventus was not looking at his face at all. His eyes were heavy lidded, staring down through thick lashes at the cock he was extricating from Vanitas' pants. Surprised but delighted by his enthusiasm, Vanitas sat back against the driver doorframe and snuggled his hands behind his head in wait. When Ventus unbuttoned his black drainpipe jeans and wrenched them halfway down his amber thighs, Vanitas snorted in befuddlement, and though he would never admit it, slight embarrassment.

"Minerva, Ventus, you know your door is open, right?" he tried. But what had started as a question ended in a gasp of exclamation as his cock was lost in Ven's throat. As the boy's tongue constricted around him and his lips pursed around the very end, Vanitas groaned and rose up his hips. He sat through several minutes of blissful pleasure, wondering with hope if Ventus was getting him off early so he would last longer when they got inside. The thought alone brought his climax achingly close. As his groans became more pinched, he punctuated them with regular fare like, "yeah," "you like me inside you," "deeper," and "you becoming a power bottom?" This last ejection was cut short when Ventus constricted the muscles of his mouth and throat as tightly as he could and pulled out until Vanitas' tip rested between his teeth. As Ventus glared up at him, Vanitas grinned and held up his hands in surrender.

"Fine," he gusted, "you don't like my gifts, you don't like my driving, you don't like my-"

A gasp burned through his words as the fingers he had not noticed Ventus lubricating dove into his asshole. With a yelp he scrambled up and shoved Ventus away, making the boy cry out in indignation. When Ventus opened his mouth to say something, Vanitas shushed him.

"Fuck," the ravenette hissed in vexation. "We're not in the fucking house, Ventus, what the fuck got you pulling out that shit? You want my fist down your throat next?"

Ventus gaped in incredulity and threw Vanitas' seven eleven bag in his face. Then he wrenched himself from the car and collected his luggage from the back seat. As he strolled around the car's hood and away from the fire escape leading up to Vanitas' front door, Vanitas fumbled his pants back up his hips and over his throbbing boner in exasperation.

"Ventus," he hissed, "where the fuck are you going?"

"I am calling an Uber," Ventus said in a martyr like tone. "I can safely see you don't want me around."

"You know fucking well that's not-" Vanitas winced through a throb that nearly took him to his knees. "-True," he finished in a gust. Ventus stopped in his tracks. Just when Vanitas thought he was coming to his senses, he saw him typing into the Uber app to see if a driver was nearby.

"You're acting like a fucking psycho," the ravenette insisted with rising desperation. If someone did not take care of his erection soon, he'd cum on the grass. Come to think of it, what was stopping him? Without shame he undid his pants and began stroking, pulling his shirt up and biting the hem in his teeth to keep it from touching his cock. When Ventus turned and saw what he was doing, he scoffed and shook his head in anger.

"You jack off in the middle of the fucking street, yet when I try to blow you in the car, you act like I've just spread my cheeks in the middle of the fucking tram common."

"I think it would be very sexy if you spread your cheeks in the middle of the fucking tram common," Vanitas said through his shirt. Ventus held up his hands in gesticulation, shoving his phone in his pocket altogether. At least he wasn't calling an Uber.

"That is my exact fucking point!" he hissed. "Double fucking standards! I could put on a fucking dog collar and hump the fountain and it's, "fuck yeah, Ven, power bottom!" but when I put a finger near _your_ asshole in a Jeep with tinted windows, you kick me in the fucking face and say you're going to beat me."

"I did not say I was going to beat you," Vanitas gasped. His muddied thoughts were ruining his progress. His dick had even ducked a few millimeters despite the pain getting worse. With a childish whine he stomped from one foot to the other and told Ventus to let him finish. But the boy's rising volume and repeated complaints about voyeurism were piercing him with sudden ill ease. Did any of their neighbors have children that liked looking out the windows at night? He hoped not.

"You said you would shove your fist down my throat after I blew you without you even having to ask," Ventus' rising voice cracked through tears. "How demeaning do you think that is for me? You demean me all the time!"

"Ventus," Vanitas pleaded. Then, caving, he spit his shirt out of his mouth and raised his hands on either side for Ventus to see.

"You want to stick your finger up my ass? Fine. I don't give a shit because I know who I am. Do it, I don't even care. Just help me out, here."

Ventus regarded him with a beady glance. Then he trudged over, shoved his hand in Vanitas' pocket, and took out his apartment key. When Vanitas tried grabbing him, he ducked and bounded across the car park. Vanitas scowled as the boy disappeared up the fire escape steps. If his clothes were not askew, he would have gained on and tackled him in an instant. In rancor he zipped up his pants, locked his Jeep from the inside, and clambered up the fire escape, slipping in the open door and locking it behind him. Ventus had chucked his luggage haphazardly in the middle of the living room floor, stomping through Vanitas' bedroom and wrenching off his clothes piece by piece before locking himself in the shower. As the water turned on, Vanitas hissed and tore into the kitchen, climbing onto the countertop and feeling along the top of the cupboards for the bathroom key. When he got it, stomped for the door, and opened up, Ventus barked for him to get out. Still clothed, Vanitas jerked the shower curtain aside and wrenched the boy from the steam amidst yelps of fury. When they returned to his room, he threw Ventus on the bed and pounced on top of him, taking his lips in his own and chaining him in his embrace. To his surprise, Ventus shoved back against him with snarling kisses that made him lose his bearing. In the scuffle, Ventus tore off Vanitas' top and undid his trousers again, ducking and taking Vanitas' cock down his throat as Vanitas groaned and clutched his bedframe for support. When Ventus' wet fingers spidered towards his entrance again, he gritted his teeth in irritation.

If he told Ventus to keep his hands to himself, the boy would keep his mouth to himself as well. And Vanitas really wanted Ventus to blow him. So he let the boy shove his fore and middle finger up his ass with a wince. When several moments of silence save for muffled squelching engulfed the room in a terrible embrace, Ventus lost inspiration and glanced up again. When he saw Vanitas' pursed lips, he pursed his own and asked why Vanitas was so quiet.

"Maybe I just don't like having your fingers up my ass, is all," Vanitas hissed in response. "Maybe I- aAhh!" he bellowed at the end, clapping his hand over his mouth after he realized what Ventus had done. When he glanced down at the boy, the blond smirked.

"So that cry was just you expressing your distaste, right?" he said in smug satisfaction. When Vanitas breathed in, Ventus shoved his fingers towards the front tip of Vanitas' pelvis again. Vanitas caught it before the sensation bowled him over and scrunched his mouth and eyes tight. When he opened them and caught Ventus' expression, he decided playtime was over. Shoving the boy back and kissing his mouth, Vanitas drove his own fingers up the blonde's ass and kneaded around as well, forcing cries from the boy's mouth. He could feel Ventus' erection rising, unabashed as he groaned into Vanitas' chest. It was as if the ravenette's previous spell of weakness was a fantasy. He blew out in relief, forcing his mind away from the strange, aching feeling tugging his ass. This was about Ventus. Reasserting his dominance over the weak and powerless. Reminding the blond who was boss.

As Ventus squirmed and spread his legs below him, Vanitas took the plunge and curled his tongue up the boy's backside. Ventus moaned and curved back into the pillows behind, circling his fingers in and stroking Vanitas' hair. When Vanitas peeped up, he saw that the blond was staring down at him. This final insubordination cracked something. The gloves came off. Vanitas slithered up and drove his cock straight through Ventus' entrance. Below him the boy croaked in shock. Vanitas held him down and kissed him again, relishing the boy crying out his name as he pumped harder. When Ventus' cries became less like moans and more like sobs, he snapped down in fright and pulled out.

"Ventus?" he said as the boy scrambled away from him. When he tried pressing his hand against the boy's back, Ventus slapped him in the face and curled up in the corner of the bed. As he sobbed into the pillows, Vanitas stared towards the wall in gob smacked horror, not knowing for the life of him why the night had gone so wrong. He had done everything he usually did. He had even been nice and let Ventus finger his asshole. And now he was crying?

"Ven…" Vanitas started, wondering what the hell had happened in Destiny Islands to make him act so psychotic.

"Why- why do you always hurt me," Ven wailed, mouth tragically wide. Vanitas dug his hands through his black hair and gusted that he always stopped when Ven told him to.

"It doesn't matter!" Ven barked in reply. "You hurt me physically and you hurt me emotionally!"

"How do I hurt you emotionally?" Vanitas demanded. Ventus sat up with uncharacteristic fire in his eyes.

"You disrespect me all the time! You act like some textbook Kake and like I'm your poor, innocent fuck toy and I'm sick of it!"

"I thought you liked that," Vanitas tried in a calm, motherly tone. But Ventus stopped him with an accusing waggle of his finger.

"No!" he hissed. " _You_ like that. Nothing you do has anything to do with what I like!"

"Then what the fuck do you like, Ven?" Vanitas bellowed at the top of his powerful voice. "Because obviously, I don't have a fucking clue!"

Ven stared at Vanitas with searching, livid eyes. Then he hissed that the people he had met at his summer program told him he was putting out. "They felt sorry for me," he railed through a staggering voice. "They said that you weren't satisfying my needs!"

Vanitas was too confused to take in any of what Ventus said, which was probably for the best. His mind had a wonderful habit of blocking out hurtful insults. But when the thought that Ventus may have found someone who _could_ satisfy his needs on his little prep school vacation bit him on the ear, his shoulders sagged and his mouth opened wide.

"Wait…" he started in befuddlement. "Are you saying you cheated on me?"

Ventus stared at him in sadness. But he said no. Vanitas breathed out in relief that surprised him. Sure, he was going out with Ventus, and sure, he would never cheat on him let alone expect Ven of all people to cheat on him. But Vanitas had definitely messed around on casual partners in the past, and he had not realized how much he liked Ventus until, well…

Weirdly, until right now. As he blinked at Ventus in new understanding, the boy murmured, "but I got close a couple times."

The air in the room dropped what felt like a hundred degrees. Vanitas' breath practically fogged up the window as he asked how far Ven had gotten. Ventus shrugged and murmured, "nowhere. There was flirtation. I fantasized. But we never touched each other."

We? As in 'myself and him'? Vanitas almost wished he had said, "They never touched me," just so he knew there was no specific threat. But if there was a particular guy, he was all the way in Destiny Islands, where Ventus would not be for at least another year. So there was nothing to worry about, right? Struggling out of his thoughts, he asked what needs of Ventus' he was forgetting to satisfy. Ventus blushed and fell to silence immediately, suddenly embarrassed. Vanitas gritted his teeth in irritation as he stared at him.

"Well, go on, you've been caustic until now, finish up what you want to say!"

"I want to fuck you!"

Vanitas and Ven reeled back as though one of them had admitted they were pregnant. Vanitas would have jumped out of his skin if he could. Ventus- Ariana Grande spirit animal, sob during puppy movies, Dorothy in his eighth grade drama club production of _The Wizard of Oz_ Ventus- wanted to fuck _him_? The guy who had stolen his virginity on his mentor's great oak desk as he squealed like a pig in heat? Vanitas, fiercest combatant and lover he knew, who reeked of domination in everything he did?

"Ventus," Vanitas snorted in pity, "You wouldn't know how to fuck a man if the manual hit you in the face."

"I think you're wrong, Vanitas," Ventus warned. "I've been paying attention to you a lot these past few months."

Vanitas blinked in surprise. Months? So Ventus had wanted to fuck him _before_ he went off to his little prep school summer program? He felt at once chuffed and violated. That had been the look Ventus pierced him with in the car. A look Vanitas had noticed in his lover's eyes in glimmers for ages. Ventus had been undressing and penetrating him with his eyes. Vanitas shivered at the thought of it, masking it with a shrug as he murmured, "I'm not letting you fuck me, Ventus."

Ventus gave a curt nod, wiped his tears, and held up his hands. "Then I guess we're not fucking at all."

As he returned to the shower, Vanitas gaped and snapped that he was blackmailing him.

"I'm not blackmailing you," Ventus called from the bath. Vanitas jumped up, kicked his pants aside, and stalked in naked after him. "Then what the hell are you doing, Ventus?" he hissed, grabbing the shower curtain when Ventus tried shoving it in his face. Ventus' ensuing, unabashed glare had never been so alluring. He avoided like an expert when Vanitas tried kissing him, turning on the faucet, digging the shower head from its holder, and making Vanitas yelp as he sprayed it between the ravenette's legs, digging his forefinger up the dark bunch of flesh and swirling around. As the ravenette shook him off Ventus called that he didn't think it was fair that Vanitas got to hurt him all he wanted without feeling a sliver of the pain he was causing.

"I did not hurt you that bad, Ventus!" Vanitas snapped in mounting vehemence. "Why didn't you just tell me to fucking stop the last twenty times we had rough sex?"

"Because you always want rough sex and I'm too tired to complain!" Ventus barked. "Even when I'm tired and not in the mood you want it, and sometimes I fake it just so you'll get out of my ass!"

"Oh for fuck's sake, then, fuck me!" Vanitas bellowed, shoving out of the bathroom fuming. It took everything in him not to tackle Ventus and strangle him in the bathtub. "If you're such a baby, maybe seeing how a man takes it will finally get you off your high fucking horse!"

The water stopped running in an instant. Ventus popped his head into the bedroom with a big grin a moment later. "Really?" he blustered, cheeks flushed like a cherubim's. "I can?"

Vanitas said yes before he had time to regret it. Ventus squealed in delight, throwing the towel he had forgotten to use aside as he practically floated to Vanitas' side. It was frightening how excited he looked. His honey colored fingers trembled as he pressed Vanitas down onto the bedcovers. As the ravenette asked with widening glance what Ven was doing, Ventus murmured for him to relax. He even crawled behind and massaged Vanitas' shoulders and coached him on things he was planning to do in a gusting whisper. The ravenette felt the blond's growing erection press into his back like a hot poker, marveling at how much the mere explanation was turning the boy on. It had always been work getting Ventus to rev up, but now he seemed to do it of his own accord. It made Vanitas' heart sink in confusion. Had he been doing things wrong this whole time?

"Stop thinking, Vanitas," Ventus hissed, "I know what you're thinking and you need to stop."

"What am I thinking?" Vanitas growled.

"You're thinking that this makes you a failure and less of a man."

"I do fucking not," Vanitas snarled up at him. "I just find it fascinating how easy you're getting into this when it takes an hour for me to warm you up when it's the other way around."

Ventus bent down and kissed him upside down before he could say anything else. Upon reflection, Vanitas decided that submitting to this action held no consequence. He raised his hand to grab a fistful of Ventus' hair and pull the boy down. Ventus continued kneading his shoulders. When he crawled over Vanitas' body and pushed apart his legs, the boy's stomach trembled with hesitation that he would never dare express. Instead he asked what Ventus was doing.

"How long ago did you shit and was it solid?" Ventus asked. Vanitas went a deeper shade of red than he thought possible. It made him want to punch a wall.

"Why does it matter?" he barked. Ventus just stared at him. Through a scowl Vanitas murmured that he had shit a couple minutes before leaving the gym and that it had been a fucking torpedo.

"That's good," Ventus beamed. "I think I got you in the shower- I… I can show you how to clean thoroughly later."

Later? The questions felt like a twisted medical exam. How soon would it be before Ventus asked him to piss in a cup? Vanitas shuffled in hidden discomfort as Ventus kissed around his inner thighs. When Ventus' tongue ran over the space behind his balls, he mocked in a high-pitched voice that "that hurt!" Ventus scowled and Vanitas snickered. A sinking sensation lunged deep into his stomach as Ventus' tongue swirled further behind his balls. When the slick muscle pressed into the asterisk shaped bunch of skin housing the part of him only two people had ever felt, he gulped against his will. Then he breathed out through his nose and forced his arms over the back of his head, mumbling encouraging thoughts to himself as he waited for the onslaught to be over. When he noticed Ventus' silence and stillness below him, he cursed under his breath and looked down. Two massive, puppy dog eyes stared up at him with the most crushing disappointment he had ever witnessed. But the waggling tongue below them was still comfortably wedged a centimeter up his ass, so he could not feel too sorry for the boy.

"Ventus, what is it now?" Vanitas gusted.

"You look tho thab," Ventus whispered. Vanitas growled and banged his head on the cushions behind him, reassuring that he was fine, but that he was just quiet when he was receiving.

"I think you'we holbing ib im," Ventus responded with narrowed eyes. Vanitas whined and propped himself up on his elbows, shrugging and snapping for Ventus to get it over with.

"I'll shbop cwying ith you keep you'we mouth opem," Ventus offered. Vanitas opened his mouth and bared his teeth.

"baw, poo," Ventus insisted.

"What?" hissed Vanitas through gritted teeth. Ventus' tongue popped as it left his ass. "Jaw, too," he repeated. Vanitas scowled and gave a plastic, open smile. Ventus grinned in satisfaction and disappeared between his amber legs again. Vanitas had to remind himself not to grit his teeth as he felt the boy's tongue slither inside him again. Against his will he began to pant. He guessed that he was nervous. He was in a new situation and needed to cut himself slack. He could get control of this.

 _Inner calm_ , he whispered on repeat. When he was sixteen this encroaching feeling of helplessness would have made him fly off the lid. But he was older. And this was Ventus.

He barked as the boy slapped him on the ass. When he looked down again, he blushed and twisted his expression into a grimace. At least Ventus seemed to be having fun. When he broke away for air and asked if Vanitas was feeling anything, the ravenette shrugged and said that maybe his dick was just more sensitive than his ass. Ventus glowered and climbed over him, stalking for the bathroom. As the sound of running water, brushing teeth, and gargling filled his bedroom; Vanitas settled back on the covers and hiked his knees to his chin, wondering what Ventus was seeing. When he saw the way the hair surrounding his entrance glistened with Ventus' saliva, his penis nestled into his belly button. When he looked at the column full on, he gasped.

Maybe that rim job had turned him on. He was so busy sweating about how weird he felt that he had not even noticed his dripping precum. At the thought of Ventus penetrating him with something much bigger, the weeping pillar of flesh pulsed up in fitful sleep.

"You can't be serious, buddy," Vanitas whispered to it as Ventus clambered around the bathroom cupboards. "Ven's popsicle stick is turning you on? You can't fucking be serious…"

"Serious about what?" Ventus asked brightly, tearing out through the bedroom and into the living room stark naked. Vanitas clomped his mouth and legs shut as the boy unzipped his suitcase, wondering what the hell he was searching for so reverently. When Vanitas regained composure enough to look into his returning companion's eyes, he sputtered in befuddlement. The boy was holding up a tiny, silvery purple shopping bag with the words _The Beast's Castle_ written in cursive silver across its front. Pink gauze fluffed out of the crumpled package's top along with the scent of gentle, musky perfume. The femininity of the whole presentation, along with Ventus' goofy, open mouthed grin, made Vanitas want to pinch himself to see if he was in reality or a really fucked up nightmare. But before Ventus' smile could falter for the umpteenth time that night, Vanitas asked what was in the bag. Immediately, he regretted it. Ventus sprung at him and padded around his side, swallowing him in a tight embrace from behind as he set the package in the ravenette's bare lap. As he giggled for Vanitas to open it, he twirled his fingertip around the inside of the ravenette's belly button, pinching the broken skin where a piercing had once been. Ventus had always adored Vanitas' belly button ring, but the area had become so infected that Vanitas refused to stick anything in there again. In hesitation he put his hands beneath the pink gauzed bag and winced as he padded around. First he brought up a tube of something called "anal-ease." Then he pulled up a box of what looked like perfume. When he opened it and read the bottle inside- "Forbidden Anal Lubricant by West Wing"- he snorted in disbelief. There was even a sample pack of Undercroft condoms, resplendent in metallic purple packets.

"The lube is silicone based," Ventus chirped. "I got the right condoms for it, too."

"M hm," Vanitas managed, reading the instructions and suggestions on the backs of the various containers expressionlessly. His brain must have been malfunctioning. He had never been in this situation before. He had never even dreamed he would come close. Right now his mental process was between two paths: freeze and wait, or turn into Mr. Hyde and tear down the apartment. But with the way Ventus was acting tonight, and the way he suddenly felt, he refused to make any sudden moves.

"You know…" Ventus started. Then he deflated and gave up, disappearing from Vanitas' back as he swept the presents from his hands. "I fucked up. We don't have to do anything. I just…" as he gave up again, Vanitas jumped up and grabbed him by the arm, insisting that they continue. Ventus raised his brows in shock.

"I said I would and I will," Vanitas cooed. Then he gave a pernicious grin. "I'm not like you, Ventus. I don't take things personally. You don't have to reestablish consent with me every time one of your cells die and replace themselves."

Before Ventus could object, Vanitas recaptured the _Beast's Castle_ bag and sauntered back to the bed. "Maybe this will teach you a lesson on what a big deal you make of everything I do. See? I'm not one bit bothered by anything that is happening right now. You bought me a present from a weird, expensive sex shop on Destiny Islands instead of getting a shirt or a postcard like a normal person? I think it's endearing. Weird. Slightly crazy. But endearing," he blabbered on with an expansive, sighing shrug and widening eyes. "So I'm not bothered. I'm not bothered that you planned this night out like a serial killer for months and got help preparing for it from your serial killer Destiny Islands prep buddies, no big deal. Because I'm not threatened. _I'm not threatened by you,_ _ **Ven.**_ "

"Okay, Van," Ventus said flatly. But Vanitas continued.

"I will submit to you for the ten minutes- and I'm being generous with that estimate- you can last inside me, and then, we will continue on like normal, like we always have, and I'll fuck your brains out until you're sane again."

"Noted," Ventus hissed. Once Vanitas was sure they had come to an understanding, he sat cross-legged on the bed and indicated for Ventus to do with him as he pleased. Ventus stared from beneath bent, smoldering brows, slinking towards the bed and padding over him with a killing glance. Vanitas tried to ignore the blonde's hands as they traced around his throat. When the blond's tongue dipped towards his clavicle, he bent his head away as a patient would to an examining doctor, feeling remarkably, reassuringly unaffected by everything that was happening. Ventus smoothed his palms down the ravenette's arms, groaning as he nuzzled his nose into the dip between the boy's collar and chest. Vanitas closed his eyes and relaxed his mouth open, responding to Ventus' arousal. The blond rose to his knees and kissed around Vanitas' ear. Then he asked Vanitas to blow him. Vanitas grinned and complied, slipping his hands between the blonde's thighs and bringing them up to clasp under his ass. The boy giggled as Vanitas lifted him up and swirled him around on the bed, until both of them thumped down together, Ventus on his back, Vanitas crawling along his stomach. As soon as the boy's member was in his mouth and Ventus' familiar cries filled his ears, Vanitas relaxed completely, washing into a rhythm he had picked up in their last few years together. But the boy was more desperate today. He wanted release faster. Vanitas shrugged and picked up the new lube in his hand, spreading a generous amount on his fingers before driving them through Ventus' entrance.

"Don't you dare use your dick," Ventus snarled. "Not until after I've done you."

He whined like a howling cat when Vanitas nibbled him gently, twisting the sheets in spirals on either side of him with his hands. Vanitas admired him as he hung his golden head back in bliss, grinning at the desperate shuddering that took over the boy's chest whenever he lost himself. When Ventus lost himself, he became immortal, like a god finally realizing who he was. Hermes: tricking, enticing, circling, evading, and guiding at every turn. The sullenness that caked and prickled his features on a daily basis melted away and he became light as air, yearning to fly from the bed at every instance, heart first. When Vanitas lost himself, he became an animal; grunting, snarling, and pounding. Punch, kick, pump, pump, pump, faster and faster until there was nothing left in him and he swirled around himself in a black, frenetic ball. That's why he paced himself with Ventus. He could manage and pinpoint his attacks when he knew what he was doing, when he had control over the emotions that had crippled him for years. He looked for loose ground, for short cuts, anything that brought him the sound that told him he had hit a winning strike. Above him, Ventus' heavy lidded eyes rolled around his skull before settling on Vanitas' worshiping stare. When he saw it, he blinked his glance wide. Then, a splitting grin erupted across his rose gold, freckled cheeks and he blushed with a silent giggle.

Vanitas gasped for breath just as the boy came down his throat. As he felt the bleach-harsh liquid catch in the flap guarding his trachea, he coughed and fell away. Ventus gasped as he lurched towards him, asking if Vanitas was all right.

"I'm fine," Vanitas insisted through a croak, hacking and spluttering as he gesticulated to his throat. "Just- just went down the wrong pipe."

"Why did you gasp so suddenly like that?" Ventus crooned. "Your eyes went so wide."

Ventus begged with his eyes for Vanitas to answer. But instead, the ravenette mumbled that if Ventus wanted to fuck him, he should hurry up. Ventus' smile wiped away with a scowl, digging a weight down his back. Resolute, he leaned Vanitas back until the boy was lying face up, checking again if he was comfortable. He even propped some pillows under his lower back. It made Vanitas deeply uneasy. Was Ventus just making a really elaborate statement on the exact way he wanted Vanitas making love to him? As the ravenette blinked up at the ceiling like it would be the last thing he ever saw, Ventus pinched his thighs. When he looked down, he realized why the blond had propped him up. It wasn't for comfort. It was so he had a full view of everything that was being done to him.

Suddenly his penis betrayed him by nodding again. Ventus snorted as he watched. "At least someone's getting excited," he drawled.

"What a comedian," Vanitas muttered in reply.

"Remember, open mouth," Ventus instructed. "I want to see the back of your throat the whole time."

"Yes, doctor," Vanitas snapped. When Ventus shot him a probing glance, he grimaced as widely as he could. Ventus rolled his eyes in exasperation. Vanitas remained with his mouth in a silent scream, tensing his jaw to its full diameter to stop from snarling for real. When he watched Ventus heaping lube onto the cupped edges of his fingers, his eyes widened until he really did look terrified. As Ventus' right hand disappeared between Vanitas' legs, his left stroked down Vanitas' jaw as he kissed his forehead.

"When I said 'open your mouth' I didn't mean reenact an Edward Munch painting," he sighed. "Just relax your lips until you can't feel them and let your jaw fall."

"You know I'm certain you're copying the exact same advice I gave you on Xehanort's de-aAh!" Vanitas yelped. Two of Ventus' fingers had plunged inside him again, this time coated in thick, freezing cold gel.

"Shit, I forgot the anal-ease," Ventus whispered. Vanitas took the moment to scoff that he didn't need it, adding that he could take a little discomfort easily enough. Ventus snorted and said, "you asked for it." Then he added a third finger.

By now, "a little discomfort" was turning to pain. Vanitas' sphincter was locked within an inch of its life and his thighs were stiff as boards. He was sweating in places he never thought possible, wiping globules from his eyes, his ears, and between his fingers in droves. The sheets below him were as damp as his hair. His breathing shifted from his chest in short, dry spurts. But his penis felt like it was melting.

In a way, the pain felt good. That wasn't a surprise; Vanitas had always enjoyed taking a beating almost as much as he liked giving one. He had courted fights with open arms from the time he was a child to the day he was kicked out of high school. A big part of him suspected he had used it as a kid to get close enough to boys to embrace them. But he had also pinched his arms, bit his tongue, and plucked his hairs from the time he could walk. And that comforting pain, coupled with the heating sensation of the lube, the slick precision of Ven's fingers, and the swelling feeling pulsing through his lower abdomen… that out of control feeling that Vanitas hated settled onto his chest like a nightmare, waiting for him to slip. To defeat it, he snatched Ventus' face and attacked it with kisses, forcing the boy to tumble against his chest. His panting turned to gasping as he breathed into his gut. The more he relaxed, the more the pain surrounding Ven's fingers ebbed. When Ven locked one of his nipples between his teeth and swirled its tip with his tongue, Vanitas arched his back and gasped. A shock of lightning coursed through him.

"You okay?" asked Ventus. "Did that hurt too much?"

"I'm fine," breathed Vanitas, eyelids so heavy that all he could see in front of him was a beautiful halo of blue and gold framing a pearly white smile. Without thinking he reached towards it and stumbled upon Ventus' perfect lips. Giggling, Ventus kissed him again, sweeping the bigger boy up in his arms and nuzzling closer. Vanitas could feel his cock grind beneath him. The place where his ass cheeks met his thighs tingled and begged to be clenched. If he had been on top, he would have commanded Ven to grab him without question. But he had forgotten how to talk. Luckily, Ventus translated his thoughts. When the boy's hand slunk from around his shoulders and dug his ass cheeks up, Vanitas moaned with pleasure. Ventus' giggle felt almost predatory.

"I know you like it when your ass is squeezed," he drawled against Vanitas' earlobe. Vanitas blubbered in indignation. Wasn't that something he was supposed to say? Suddenly, a crippling fear washed over him.

What if he _was_ as sensitive in his ass as he was in his dick? What if he responded "well" to Ventus inside him? What if he liked it? What if…

What if he preferred it?

The question shot out of his head the moment the tip of Ventus' cock made contact with his entrance. Perhaps it was just him, but from this angle, it looked a lot bigger than usual.

"You'regonnastickitinalready?" Vanitas breathed, too drunk on the slick, hot feeling Ventus had given him to preserve his self-image. Ventus grinned and murmured that Vanitas seemed ready.

"But I'll wait till you say yes before I do anything more," he acceded.

Vanitas pierced him with a bitter glance. He could tell him to stop now, end it before he found out whether the news was bad or good. He'd be the same old Vanitas forever; dependable, dominant, and in control like always. He would not tumble any deeper down the ledge he had been forced upon. But Ventus might get fed up with him for good. Maybe Ventus wanted a new Vanitas. Maybe Vanitas wanted Ventus to want him always, no matter what he had to do or who he had to become. Had Ventus flirted with the guy in Destiny Islands because he was tired of dreaming? Would Ventus still want Vanitas after he'd been inside him? If he pushed Ventus away, would he feel like a coward, forever? Would he be able to live with himself if he let him come inside?

"Do it," Vanitas decided. "I become your responsibility afterwards." Ventus glowed like the sun as he sealed the ravenette's mouth with a kiss. Then, steadying himself, he caught Vanitas' eye and dove down.

"Motherfucker!" Vanitas gasped as his head lolled back. Stars were invading his vision. He was on the precipice of letting go, of becoming the pumping, snarling animal he hated. He could feel the sensation rocking his pelvis back and forth of its own accord. When Ventus moaned down the ravenette's exposed throat, it got worse. Vanitas marveled at the tug of Ventus' skin on his own as he bobbed up and down, digging his whole body forward and back like a rolling wave. When Ventus stared into his darting yellow irises with hungry, dilated pupils, Vanitas spread his legs wider and welcomed the boy to eat him alive.

 _Harder, harder, harder,_ he begged in his head, yelping when the blond complied. Could he hear his thoughts? No. Fuck, he'd been saying it out loud. _Dammit…_

"I love your body, Vani," Ventus breathed. Vanitas' cheeks pinked and his heart fluttered. He held back a snort. Ventus was really going all out. He usually said he loved Vanitas' cock, or his muscles, or his eyes, or some shit like that. Now he was turning things personal. He'd even dropped his Ariana pout and baby moans. Had some freak in Destiny Islands switched minds with him? Vanitas couldn't help but stare at the stranger in a mixture of ecstasy and horror. Where was his shivering bottom lip, his curled up legs, his fucking hesitation?

 _Holy fuck, he_ is _becoming a god,_ some weird, childish voice in Vanitas' head squealed.

"Oh, shut up," Vanitas replied.

"What?" Ventus growled. Vanitas shook his head.

"I'm just… talking to myself," he managed.

"About?"

"Gree… Greek gods," Vanitas sputtered. Ventus took his jaw in his hand and stroked down, snickering and cocking his pink freckled cheek to the side. The gesture was so tiny yet so frighteningly expansive. Ventus grew ten times his size. The room was a cavern. The bed was a plane of silky white. And Ventus inhabited its center like a golden pillar that reached from down cotton snow into the peaks of the clouds above. He was so powerful, so destructive, just by existing. Something in Vanitas shrunk as he looked at him. Ventus must have felt it too, because he gasped.

 _He'sactuallyagodholyfuckingshitthisdirtyfuckingislanderbeddedafuckinggreekgodwhosayshelovesyourbodyyoucelestialfuckingbastard,_ his baby voice babbled in his head, while another screamed, _stopturnandrundon'ttakeanotherstep_ _ifyougoanyfurtherhe'lldestroyyouyoucan'tbeathimnomatterhowhardyoufeinorlookawayor_ _cry_ _or_ _punchorkickordreamheknowsyoubetterthanyou_ _knowyourself-_

"Vanitas, listen to me, don't go away, again," Ventus begged above him. Vanitas snapped to attention and nodded, rolling his tongue around his open mouth to keep himself from going insane. When Ventus pulled away, Vanitas snatched for him in vain. It was like a speck of coal trying to encompass a mountain.

"You'redrivingmecrazy," Vanitas begged in a whisper. Ventus' blue eyes flashed. Suddenly Vanitas' legs were draped over his golden shoulders. Something warm splashed over him, across his abdomen up to his chest like a flock of white birds across dark, hard packed clay. Ventus kissed the inside of the ravenette's knees as he used his hands to cinch Vanitas' hips closer. Then he dived again. If Vanitas hadn't known he was flexible before, he knew now. The inside of his thighs were hugging his sides. He was shouting. Grinding forward, chin turned up, then chest, then abdomen, then hips, then the part inside of him that howled every time it was pressed. His feet dangled in the air above his sopping head. With each breath he begged Ventus to come closer. Ventus shoved his legs away and swarmed Vanitas in his arms, forcing him to make eye contact. For the fleeting moment before their glances locked, Vanitas warned himself not to look. When he did, he cursed.

Ventus' face glowed and glistened with sweat. He expanded again, propped up on his elbows, this time beyond himself, roaring molten gold. His irises dug into Vanitas' cells like sapphire daggers. The soul peeling off his skin burned. But he held Vanitas' gaze with such a desperate, demanding glare. He wanted something. He was a god and he could get whatever he wanted.

In shock Vanitas stared down his stomach and groaned. He could see Ventus' cock pumping into him, pulling the skin of his entrance in and out. The motion of the boy's abdomen made Vanitas' eyes widen. The muscles surrounding his belly button tugged and relaxed in endlessly varying waves as his outie kissed Vanitas' lower stomach again and again. When Vanitas attempted covering his mouth with his hands, Ventus pressed his fingers into the sheets on either side of him. He locked Vanitas' mouth with his own. His tongue felt so good. His lips were so soft. Vanitas grasped them in hunger. But his eyes were being drawn again to the motion of his companion's body. Suddenly, a shot of cold water washed over him. He shut his eyes and shivered. When he opened them again, his body sunk into the depths of the bed below him.

For that blissful moment, he moved freely. He looked into Ventus' eyes and saw a brother. A twin. The left lung to his right. He wasn't a body anymore. He was something subtler. He was only his breath. Ventus' face splintered with an ecstatic grin that made Vanitas laugh, a kind of laugh he had forgotten was possible for him. His voice shattered into a long groan and Ventus kissed and held him again, shouting his name.

Then, he was coming down. Hurtling. He splattered into himself like a body hitting rough concrete. The room spun and sank. He became bigger than he felt. Ventus remained the same size; too large to encompass the thimble of a bedroom he lay trapped within. He needed open air- sand and endless sky. But here he was, tossing and breaking like a midmorning wave, splitting and gasping through a fit of giggles. If his cheeks turned any brighter, he would burn himself up. Vanitas stared at him with a slack jaw. When Ventus glanced towards him, he could not meet his eye. But he could feel the boy's gaze.

"How was that?" the baby god finally asked, blustering as if he had just run a mile in record time. Humble brag. Vanitas stared up at his ceiling. His cracked, moldy cornered ceiling, puke brown in the absence of sunlight. "Fantastic," his voice echoed around the cell of his head. "I was really surprised."

"I told you!" Ventus giggled. He thumped Vanitas' arm with his fist, sending a claw of light from the ravenette's veins to his heart. Everywhere Ventus had touched tingled. Everywhere Ventus touched now ached.

"What time is it?" the blond mused, bathed in the glow of triumph. For a moment he lounged on his elbow, craning over his shoulder to peek through the curtains guarding the window. Vanitas blinked and widened his eyes in a rhythm, flexing and relaxing his hands and feet until he remembered who he was. Suddenly Ventus' body washed over him as the blond reached for his phone. Vanitas stiffened below as the boy's impossibly warm torso bathed him. A gulp stammered up his throat. He stilled it by holding his breath.

"Fuck," Ventus' stomach echoed over Vanitas' as he read the hour. When he continued typing, Vanitas asked if he was talking to someone. Ventus shrugged, muttering that it was a friend from his summer program. As he read whatever message the person had sent, he laughed. Then he reached back and mussed Vanitas' hair. "You came pretty hard," he chirped. "Shot all over the wall."

What? When Vanitas fixed him with a hostile, confused glance, Ventus furrowed his brows and demanded to know what was wrong. Vanitas blinked and scowled, staring around to see what Ventus was talking about. Sure enough, white sprays bathed his walls like blood splatters around the bed. Even the ceiling had gotten some. In horror, Vanitas glanced down at himself, going pale when he noticed that Ventus had bits glistening against his chin and hair. Vanitas wiggled under him. His chest felt sticky. He massaged his temple with his fingers, smeared them across his skin like wet paint. When he brought his hand back, it was covered in white gel.

"Oh my gods," he squeaked in horror. Ventus laughed over him.

"You came like three times," he sighed. "You were like a faucet."

"When?" gasped Vanitas.

"When?" Ventus snorted smugly. "The whole time."

"No, when did I come," snarled Vanitas.

"Once right after I pushed in all the way," Ventus counted, "Once after you said I was driving you crazy, and your biggest one was a few seconds ago. Went on for a couple minutes."

"What?" Vanitas croaked. "What time is it?"

"It's like eleven thirty."

"How long were we…"

"Hour, maybe? I lost count."

An hour? It had felt like ten minutes. And he- _he_ had come three times?

"Did you touch my penis?" asked Vanitas. Ventus shook his head with pride.

"Nope. Just your ass."

Vanitas ran his fingers through his hair in desperation. How was Ventus so good?

"Are you sure you didn't cheat on me at that summer camp?" he insisted. When Ventus tried meeting his eye, he avoided his glance. Ventus frowned above him and said that he would never cheat on Vanitas.

"If you're wondering how the hell I got a response from you that you've barely ever gotten from me-" he began, ignoring Vanitas' protests, "-it's because you're a bad listener. Just now, I had to remind you to come back to the land of the living like ten times over sixty minutes. And I still masturbate, Van."

"You still masturbate?" Vanitas snapped, mortally wounded. "How much?"

"Does it matter?" Ventus demanded. "I know what I like."

"I thought I knew what you liked, too," Vanitas said. "You never said otherwise."

"I've been working through a lot of insecurities lately, Van," Ventus murmured. "I- I'm just tired of lying about how I feel to make other people happy."

Vanitas reeled back and narrowed his eyes with a snort. Ventus stared at him over his shoulder and scowled. "Just because someone's better than you at something doesn't mean they cheated to get there."

"Well, if I can't even make you come-"

"Maybe if you stopped pumping blindly when you fuck you'd actually see what's in front of you. Everything isn't always a fucking war." Then he fell silent. For a moment the air hung heavy, as if waiting. After the feeling dropped, Ventus turned to Vanitas with an accusing look and announced, "You know, I had a completely different idea of what you would act like right now."

Vanitas's eyes widened as the dam cracked by Ventus' lovemaking destroyed itself completely. Before the blond could say another word, Vanitas shoved past him and dived for the bathroom, locking the door and swiveling the cold-water tap in the bath until it jammed and gushed. Then he put the stopper in. Ventus bellowed in his wake, jiggling the lock and banging on the doorframe behind. Vanitas ignored him and waited for the water to rise. He decided to turn the hot tap full blast, too. Soon, amniotic temperature water rose around his arm. When he moved to take off his clothes, he realized he wasn't wearing any. He wished he could peel his skin off instead. Ventus continued hammering outside.

"Come on, come on, come on," Vanitas snarled. The voices in his head echoed like a raging storm, now, vicious and overlapping. Ventus' roaring and banging on the door only made it worse.

Finally, the water grew high enough for Vanitas to slip in. In relief he dived down and let out his breath, feeling himself sink until he was floating millimeters above the porcelain. When he curled up, it felt like returning to the womb. Except this time, he felt his body. And it disgusted him.

He had not heard Ventus unlock the door with the same key Vanitas used earlier. When the boy barged in he gritted his teeth in fury, tongue pointed around syllables meant to hurt. When he saw Vanitas curled under the water, though, his jaw dropped in bewilderment. In seconds he wrenched the ravenette into cold air. As he shook him, the Vanitas gasped and spluttered, cringing on himself with eyes shut tight. When he opened them, he saw Ventus' face contorted into a snarl. Tears bubbled down his honey cheeks.

"What the fuck were you doing?" He sobbed. "Were you trying to kill yourself?"

"No, fuck, of course not," Vanitas growled, gulping to hold back what was stuck in his throat, shoving Ventus across the tile as he shielded himself from the boy's icy blue glare. "I just wanted to feel... I need to be alone right now, I- I just-"

The thing he had not wanted Ventus hearing erupted from his throat like vomit. He covered his face with his hands as it left him and hunched in on himself, shaking violently as he began to sob. When Ventus saw what he was doing, his eyes widened in shock and he climbed in with him, forcing Vanitas into a tight embrace as he rocked him back and forth through the water.

 _ **•••**_


	3. Cast Iron

**A/N: Anaid- no, no, he wasn't trying to kill himself! He was just lying under the water, basically trying to tune out the world and get ahold of himself. He locked the door and turned the water on because he didn't want Ventus realizing he was crying. Sorry that was unclear! I'm tempted to explain why he hid, but hopefully the reason will reveal itself...**

 **Also, sorry for the slow uploads. This is a back burner story right now, so updates will inch along whenever I can find extra time. Thank you for reading!**

* * *

 **•••**

 _ **Chapter Three:**_

 _ **Cast Iron**_

 _ **•••**_

Vanitas sat behind Organization Thirteen's reception desk nursing a pen nib and a water bottle of vodka and sprite. No one but him knew the soda was spiked and he was not about to let the cat out of the bag, so he forced himself to pace one shot worth every thirty minutes to stave off the urge to burn down the whole building. It had been one of the roughest weeks of recent memory. After he sobbed into Ventus' chest in the bathtub the night after he got back from Destiny Islands, he was sure the blond believed their best times were ahead of them. But Vanitas' feelings had become so muddied he could not look at the baby god without cringing. It had traveled to the point of avoidance. Whenever Ventus touched him or called him in his special way a shock ran through him and he slithered off with some lame excuse. He could not explain it, but he knew that if he let Ventus touch him, he would have sex with him. And if he let Ventus have sex with him, he knew he would inevitably be the one getting fucked. And he did not want to repeat sobbing like a newborn in the bathtub any time soon. He could not even fuck himself out of fear that his fingers would travel down to replace Ventus' penis. But his resolve was wearing thin. He'd already fired through a pack of cigarettes before twelve, so his goal for the remainder of his shift was to get out in one piece without exploding, using the handle bars on the triceps pushdown as a dildo, or their chord for strangling himself. As he chewed on the lid of his water bottle, he looked over the small letter he had scribbled to Ventus that morning. He had been reworking and proofreading it for his entire shift. It was embarrassing, vulnerable, and scribbled with the handwriting of a three year old: barely legible. It said something he had never expected or hoped to admit in his lifetime: granted, a lot of weird things had been happening to him in the past week, so this shouldn't have been new.

He was in love. Literally, hopelessly. In the shit. And he didn't think Ventus loved him back. _Why would he?_ The voice in his head repeated to him whenever he admitted it. _There's not one lovable thing about you._

"Shut up!" Vanitas snarled, banging his fist into his face. He took a stronger swig of soda and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. A familiar shadow fell over his face as he scrunched it up. When he opened his eyes, he met a cobalt blue gaze behind a dull shag fringe. Then he groaned.

Zexion narrowed his eyes in curiosity, examining Vanitas as if examining a specimen under a microscope. "Interesting," he murmured. Then he grinned. "You're drunk."

The little color left in him parted Vanitas' face altogether. He fixed Zexion with an incredulous glance, begging him to be joking. But the man's eyes twinkled with glee.

"Employee. Of. The. Month. Is. Drunk. Ha!" he exploded in a fit of giggles. Vanitas clenched his fists and murmured for Zexion to keep his voice down. But the man ignored him, snatching the letter to Ventus from his hand and holding it up to the light. Once Vanitas processed that it was gone, he gasped and fired up, knocking over his bottle as he demanded the letter back. To his horror, Zexion had already gotten halfway through reading it.

"I never thanked you properly for the things you did to me last week," Zexion read out loud, reveling in his good fortune. "I've always known deep down I'm not good enough for you but I can't be without you so I'm willing to become whatever you want me to be so I can stay by your side. You can come into me as much as you want, whenever you want, and I'll never complain or say no-"

"Give me that fucking-" Vanitas snarled, trying to extricate the letter from Zexion's palms without any of the gym goers across the room noticing. Several examined the scuffle with veiled interest already. When Zexion finished the letter, he let it fall to the ground and beamed as Vanitas scrambled to pick it up. He watched with glee as Vanitas cradled it back to his desk. The ravenet swore when he realized his spiked drink had spilled all over the reception desk keyboard, mouse pad, and paperwork beneath. Lost for what to do, he pressed his hands through his hair, took off his shirt, and began mopping up. Zexion examined the slabs of muscle dragging and pulling across his back in new, keen interest, wondering out loud if Vanitas had always been a bottom and just not known it. The word drilled into Vanitas' skull and made his head hurt more than any hangover could. Zexion leaned closer.

"Hey," he managed through a snicker, "give me a look at your ass and I'll let slide all your mother jokes and descriptions of Ventus," he winked. Vanitas glowered at him.

"Zexion," he intoned, "if you're joking, I'm not in the mood."

"If I can put up with your sexual harassment for months, you can put up with mine," Zexion trilled. "I'd say you owe me for all you've made me put up with over our friendship."

"We're not friends," Vanitas snarled. Zexion laughed.

"Well you've never really _had_ any friends that you haven't fucked or fucked over, Vanitas," he explained. "Unless you count dealers, broken hearted exes, Ventus, coworkers, and back alley brawl buddies-"

"Zexion," Vanitas seethed in final warning.

"-Sodomy is illegal across the Islands, right?" Zexion broke in sudden curiosity. "Or is it just Destiny?"

Before he could say another word, Vanitas climbed over the reception desk like a wild cat, clamped Zexion's head under his armpit, and proceeded to punch him in the face over and over. Punch, punch, puch, punch, punch. Faster and stronger and faster and stronger until the monster that he had evaded since the age of sixteen roared to its full power. As blood splattered and bone splintered into his knuckles, Zexion screeched and begged for him to stop, tugging his feet to and fro in a vain attempt to throw Vanitas off of him. There was uproar as a horde of employees and gym members tore up to film the fight or get the pair off one another. Vanitas could not hear them when they commanded him to stop. All he could see was red. When a man attempted clamping his arms over his head and another took hold of the hem of his pants he clawed his amber arms around the backward man's head and brought him over his shoulder, right onto the wrists of the other. Tendons snapped and spine thudded against the tiled floor. Vanitas gave up Zexion for them, next, punching one and then the other with gritted, blood stained teeth. It took ten to bring him down. Before the man who's spine had hit the ground had the chance to knock him up the jaw, the gym owner clambered down and bellowed that the police were being called. The minute Vanitas heard that dreaded, once familiar word, he came to and blinked around him. When he met eyes with Xemnas, his shoulders sagged in horror.

"Boss," he breathed, trying to step forward but toppling back against the sea of bodies pinning him down. Xemnas bent close to his face and asked if he could control himself. When he smelt the alcohol off Vanitas' breath, he reeled in shock. Then he told the gym members to leave Vanitas to himself and the rest of the employees and indicated for him to follow him to his office. Vanitas deflated and nodded in compliance, followed closely by the majority of the gym administration as their resident nurses, Vexen and Lexaeus, sat with Zexion as he waited for the ambulance. He covered his face with his hands as he sobbed, but Vanitas was sure it was beaten to a pulp. The ravenet ignored the shaking taking over his arms and legs and ground his teeth to stop them from chattering. But when he breathed in, his lower lip caught against his upper teeth in a trill. When he wiped at his eyes he felt tears. When he pulled back his palms, all he saw was blood.

When he reached Xemnas' office on the second floor and sat before his desk with the rest of Organization's management gathered around him, he was asked what the fuck happened. Vanitas was lost for words.

"Vanitas, if you don't tell me what the fuck just happened I'll have you arrested," Xemnas snarled. "And I'll make sure Xehanort doesn't have the chance to bail you out like he did last time."

The rest of management glanced at Vanitas with sparkling eyes, begging silently for Xemnas to tell them what the "last time" had been. Realizing that he would not be able to pay for his apartment if he was unemployed with a black mark against his record, Vanitas said coolly that Zexion had solicited him for sex.

"And you beat the shit out of him for it?" asked his manager, Ansem. Vanitas shrugged and said that Zexion was egging him on and that he snapped. "I've been going through some personal shit lately-"

"That's apparent," murmured the grounds manager.

"Is that why you were intoxicated?" asked Xemnas. The glee inflating the party surrounding was palpable.

"I noticed Vanitas attempting to snatch this letter from Zexion's arms during their altercation," the associate gym manager announced, pulling the rough draft of Vanitas' letter to Ventus from his pocket before passing it around the rest of management one by one until it landed on Xemnas' desk. The only employee who did not look at its contents was Axel, an ex buddy of Vanitas and an ex boyfriend of Ventus' brother Roxas. Once Xemnas had examined the contents himself, he widened his eyes and breathed out in exhausted disbelief, muttering that Vanitas seemed to need serious counseling.

"I don't need counseling," Vanitas lied. Rich people with nothing better to do sobbed their problems to therapists. Not Vanitas. Not the family Vanitas came from. They'd die with shame if they knew he was airing their dirty laundry to some licensed gossip, no matter how far away from home he or she practiced. Funny enough, coming into work intoxicated and causing a brawl seemed much more up their alley.

"I think you need a lot of things that employment at a gym like this can't give you," Xemnas interrupted, folding Vanitas' letter and giving it back to him. "I would have been glad to keep you on in the stocking and loading department, but one of the people you assaulted was a customer, and I doubt he'd appreciate seeing you around in the near future."

"Great," chirped Vanitas in a tight voice.

"And you will be spending the night in jail," added Xemnas. "It's the least you can do in repayment for me calling my father to fix this PR problem."

"If there's any way someone could come to bail me out, earlier," Vanitas tried with a plastic grin, but Xemnas held up his hand to stop him. "You will not milk a penny more from my father," he snarled. "Unless I see fit."

"Can I at least call my boyfriend?" asked Vanitas.

"No you may not," Xemnas snapped, "because Ventus knows Xehanort and might convince him to look after you."

"I'll lie and say I'm going on a trip for the gym," Vanitas said with rising voice as he rose to his feet. "I just don't want him worrying-"

"You mean you don't want him getting suspicious," the assistant manager laughed. "Does he ground you whenever you bash someone's face in?"

Vanitas closed his eyes, muttering that he had renounced violence three years ago.

"Well you didn't do very well at renouncing it ten minutes ago," the assistant manager snorted, padding around the patch concealing his left eye in amusement.

"Zexion made several comments regarding Vanitas' sexual expression, but it was an unrelated inquiry on gender laws in Destiny Islands that sent him over the edge."

Everyone shot up and turned except Vanitas, who swiveled over his shoulder with a look that could kill. Standing in the doorway was Vexen, his lab coat and white button up beneath stained crimson. As he looked down at Vanitas in disgust, Vanitas hissed that Zexion should have seen it coming.

"He knows I'm touchy about where I come from, I've had a bad week, and he already solicited me for sex-"

"He joked about having a look at your backside," Vexen corrected. "I'd hardly call that sex solicitation, let alone solicitation of any sort."

"Is that true, Vanitas?" Xemnas asked.

Vanitas blinked and looked back at him with bitten lip. Then he murmured, "the wording may have been off, but the intention was very clear."

"Xemnas, I have been a close friend of Zexion's family for many years and as such, have never remotely known him to solicit any form of sexual contact in a professional or educational setting. Forgive me, but I'd venture to say that Vanitas simply becomes _touchy_ when drunk- a clear violation of Title X of our Employee Code of Conduct. His intoxication led him to grasp at hasty conclusions." Then he pierced Vanitas with a snide, hateful glance. "Perhaps 'childhood' on the Isle of Monsters made you sensitive to-"

Before he could finish, Vanitas had leapt up again. This time, though, he was barred back by the entire management team, including two of the largest men he had ever met, Lexaeus and Xaldin. When Xemnas commanded him to sit down again, Vanitas did so in humiliation.

"A violent past is no excuse to enact violence against coworkers," his boss snapped. "Are the police present?"

"Downstairs," Vexen chirped, flying out the door to fetch them. Xemnas nodded and rubbed his eyes, muttering that he would escort Vanitas through a rear entrance to escape judgmental eyes or gods forbid- news stations.

"And that's far more than you deserve," he snarled. With that, he wrenched himself up, grabbed Vanitas' arm, and pulled him along with him down the stairs to the back shipment doors.

 **•••**


	4. Tribal Ties

**A/N: Hey guys. I'm deciding to publish this just because it's staring at me from my Doc Manager like it wants to kill me. Unfortunately, I don't see myself continuing this story. Life is busy and intense and there are other fics and ideas I want to explore. This would turn into an epic pretty fast. But you all deserve the last few chapters I've written.**

* * *

 **•••**

 _ **Chapter Four:**_

 _ **Tribal Ties**_

 _ **•••**_

Vanitas stared at a jail cell wall for fourteen hours, mapping out every wrinkle of paint, burst bubble, smeared dead bug, and dust particle he could find trapped inside. He made constellations with them. The dancing rabbit. The six factions. The broken tank. Maui and Princess Kilika. That one made him chuckle. The worm and the obsidian teeth. Queen of the Farplane. This made him laugh outright. Then he sighed.

He fantasized a lot about Greek gods, but none of them seemed to describe who he was in a positive way like they did Ventus. Ares never had a smart, cunning, caring side or a sense of humor the way the rest of his family did, as far as Vanitas knew. Maybe the war god's mindset belonged more with the southern island gods, the ones who weren't raised on wine and songs but on blood and bones. He guessed that Ventus could be a Maui, though. Trickster god.

Ha. Maybe.

Something about him definitely read more Greek, though. Sleeker. More fashionable. Less primal. But he had certainly dug into the primal side of Vanitas…

But then again, Vanitas supposed that he had always liked things rough. Or did he? Fuck, he was so confused. To Ventus, his main problem seemed to be when he got lost in his head, when those thoughts of disgust roamed free and made him want to punch or thrust again and again until everything surrounding him fell to dust.

The opening cell door made him jump. He and the barred chamber's other inhabitants looked up in hope. When two sets of citrine eyes met, Vanitas tensed and relaxed at once. A smile tugged up his cheeks.

It was only when he rose that he realized how much he needed to take a shit. He'd only risked pissing in the toilet at the mass cell's rear wall, and that alone had elicited thunderous appraisal from the men surrounding. If he were younger he would have gotten into a brawl. But today he was on his best behavior.

He ignored the voices as they whistled at his still shirtless form, treading in silence behind Xehanort as the old man lead him through the precinct to the gaggle of police desks lining the front door. As soon as Vanitas was signed out, Xehanort asked what he wanted for dinner. The color left Vanitas' face.

"Oh, I don't," he started. But the old man insisted.

Xehanort must have been in his seventies, though his bent, wizened form hid a surprising level of strength. He was bald, taught skinned, and dark like Vanitas, with the same Ronso yellow eyes. They had been what drew Vanitas to the man's grandson in the first place. 'Tribal ties,' as the islanders liked to say. Unlike Vanitas, Xehanort's family was revoltingly rich, as their patriarch was one of the most powerful justices in the country. Vanitas was lucky to know him. But he used the figure's influence with care. For the last three years, he had renounced him completely. Yet here he was again. Trapped. Re-dependent.

"I'm afraid I'll have to enact our old rule," Xehanort winked.

Vanitas gave a curt, respectful nod.

The 'old rule'. The one commandment: do anything and everything the old man asks. It had been fun as a kid when Xehanort brought Vanitas and his grandson shopping and told them to buy "whatever they wanted." But as the ravenet's voice deepened, his muscles bloomed, and the baby fat that once made him lovable disappeared, the demands took on a different nature.

Xehanort's grandson learned the old man's language fast. Every request was a thinly veiled command. The older the grandson got, the less interest he had in his poor islander buddy. But Xehanort never lost interest. Even after taking Vanitas under his wing after the boy's parents threw him out of their house.

Well. "Threw out" was a generous term. Vanitas became part of a new family. That was how he met Ventus in the first place. "Part of the family." A slow burn torture: being shown treasures and luxuries beyond his wildest dreams yet remaining unfit to enjoy them himself. He oozed politeness and submissiveness when around his elders, but in private, he became an animal. Every night he would dash from his rose gilded cage and scramble into darkness, into his midnight brawls.

 _"_ _Who the fuck is following me?"_ the memory of himself echoed in his head.

 _"_ _It- it's only me,"_ whispered Ventus' feigned brave voice in reply.

 _"_ _Get lost, rich boy,"_ Vanitas had snarled. _"Or I'll destroy you next."_

But somehow, Ventus followed him night after night.

He was a capable fighter for being two years younger than Vanitas. Of course, what he had learned in expensive dojos around the country Vanitas had courted at night, in the schoolyards outside his Destiny Islands elementary and middle schools, with his countless cousins, with any man who called themselves a friend of the family, and finally, with his bull of a father and the rest of his gang before he ran to Xehanort.

Who asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and invited him to his study and let him look at his books as he kneaded his shoulders, arms, and back. Touches like glimmers, black dots of confusion, slimy drips of discomfort that kept him up sometimes at night and forced him into the shadows under flickering streetlamps, into brawls with strangers whose sole purpose was to satisfy his desire for blood. For dominance. For the reminder that he was sentient, intelligent, and in control.

Xehanort, whose trust Vanitas spat on in secret when he fucked the innocent Ventus over his great oak desk, a desk of judges. Yet here he was again. Sitting beside him in a long black car, a hearse of a vehicle, staring at the back of his chauffer's head. Entirely. Not. In control.

The rest of the ride proved uneventful. The man asked again what Vanitas wanted to eat, and Vanitas murmured, "Whatever you like."

Xehanort chuckled in amusement, his hand resting high on Vanitas' thigh.

The ravenet drew his gaze away and out the window, his mind drifting back to the constellations on the prison cell wall. Maui and Princess Kilika. The worm and the obsidian teeth.

"I'd eat you if I could," the old man mused. "For being so foolhardy."

"I'd eat myself if I could, too," Vanitas whispered.

The wizened hand on his thigh stroked up and down, inching higher as the car crept on.

"Sacred Moon Café?" the old man suggested.

Vanitas grinned against his will. A memory of himself, Xehanort's grandson, and the old man sitting together in a café that rotated around the top of the largest skyscraper in town, noses glued to the huge, single paned glass window that encompassed the restaurant like the frame of a snow globe, filled him with warmth.

"Junior talks about you sometimes," Xehanort offered.

Vanitas snorted. The old man was always generous. 'Sometimes' meant hardly at all.

"What does he say," Vanitas retorted.

"He wonders how you're doing," Xehanort sighed. "I'll be disappointed to report that you've met his expectations, again."

Vanitas' heart sank as he stared at his hands. Bad mistake when he saw just how close the old man's fingers lied to his hips. It made him squirm up as if a cigarette burned between his legs.

Xehanort squeezed tighter.

"Why did you run away, Vanitas?" he asked. "As a legal adult, I supported your decision, but I always wondered why you left your dreams behind."

 _Because of you_ , the baby voice in Vanitas' head whispered in fear. Vanitas shrugged it off, murmuring that he was getting too violent. He needed to make himself grow up.

"I could have helped you with that," Xehanort murmured in reply. His hand moved up and rested directly between Vanitas' legs.

Vanitas closed his eyes and pursed his lips. "I needed to be alone," he said.

Xehanort's hand patted him and relinquished, as if grabbing crotches was a harmless gesture between old friends. "I'm glad you're not alone, anymore," he murmured. "But it doesn't appear you've grown up."

"Takes longer for some than others," Vanitas responded.

Before Xehanort could touch him again, he opened his passenger window and craned out his head, letting the wind catch his cheeks. He cheered and whooped into the breeze as it hammered by, faltering but choosing to ignore the old man's hand as it slipped down the back of his pants. "Faster, driver!" he bellowed ahead.

Xehanort chuckled for the driver to speed up.

Vanitas leaned himself out further, until his whole head heaved back under the pressure of the wind. He heard nothing but the whip of his hair around his ears. His mouth grew dry from his open smile. His eyes watered. His voice went hoarse from screaming.

 **•••**


	5. Falling

**A/N: I was looking back over this story and decided to edit the last few unposted chapters. If there's enough interest, I might continue. Thank you all for your lovely reviews :)**

* * *

 **•••**

 _ **Chapter Five:**_

 _ **Falling**_

 _ **•••**_

The moment Xehanort's chauffer dropped him back to his Jeep and pulled away down the road, Vanitas tore the old man's undershirt from his body and rammed it into the nearest trashcan. Then he stalked to his old faithful forlorn in the empty gym parking lot and wrenched its driver door open, digging around inside for one of the spare packs of cigarettes he kept hidden amongst its crevices. When he felt an uncharacteristic chill above his head and noticed the dents in the Plexiglas of the rear window, he snapped up in anxiety and howled in displeasure when he saw his roof.

Someone had slashed the tarp so badly it had caved in. Driving with the top down was the only sane option, now.

With a snarl Vanitas shoved away to make a full inspection.

Tires slashed. Hood dented. Plexiglas on rear passenger window cracked. Rock shoved in the exhaust. But the interior seemed spotless. Thank gods the vehicle was a monster like him. If he ever figured out exactly who destroyed it, he would legitimately kill them. He could taste their blood on his lips and it turned him on.

With another roar he slammed his fist into his front passenger seat and dived around for his cigarettes. When he came across a savior pack half full, he swiped it up, parked his ass on the curb, and smoked through the whole lot in fifteen minutes. Then he got to work examining what was salvageable.

All but one tire could be patched. For the one that couldn't, he used the spare hidden under his back seat, a relic saved from when the container that had previously housed it on the Jeep's back had not yet been torn off by the second hand owner before him.

He didn't finish repairs until one am in the morning. By then he'd found a second savior half pack of cigarettes. He burned through them just as he pulled into the car park behind is apartment's fire escape door, which was open and bathed the steel stairs outside in a soft, golden glow.

When Vanitas realized the kitchen was exposed, his face froze into a grimace and he shut off his lights. He'd just had his car destroyed, yet fate had decided to rob his fucking apartment, as well? Sounded good by him.

Like an alley cat he slunk for the toolbox he had used not twenty minutes ago and extricated the two heaviest hammers he could find. Gripping them both like old friends, he shut the tool box, locked up, took the last cigarette tucked behind his ear, and secured it into the right side of his mouth opposite the other, so that he looked like a saber toothed tiger with smoking teeth. He snarled as he stalked barebacked towards the door, seeing red and ignoring the dirty, blood stained slacks sheathing his legs. He clambered up the fire escape unceremoniously, furrowing his brows when he heard a girl's scream and a strange man's laughter in the living room. Another voice, deeper than the following two, responded in an undecipherable murmur.

So there were at least three. Were they mere thieves, or people Vanitas knew? Gym employees or their friends? Larxene? Marluxia? Luxord? Vexen's coward pals?

So the fucking Jeep wasn't enough for them?

When the mystery girl laughed and Ventus' voice screeched in return, Vanitas held back a gasp. Shit. He hadn't called in twenty four hours, so of course Ventus would come by to see what was wrong.

Grimacing, Vanitas calculated how close the first dead head was, deciding that the deepest voiced, most likely strongest adversary was closest to the door and that Ventus was furthest in. Then, nodding, he entered.

The first hammer swung until it tore through the wall right above the first fuck brain's head. The moment the silveret gasped and tumbled to the floor, the girl behind screamed in horror.

Telling her to shut the fuck up or he'd burn away her tits, Vanitas wrenched his hammer out of the wall and raised it above the silveret's head. Before he could bring it down in the gap between his simpering, pearly white teeth, a howl erupted and Ventus tackled him back.

Immediately Vanitas shoved him off, yelping when the ashes from one of his cigarette tusks kissed his bare nipples. In the fray, the fags were slapped right out of him by Ventus' powerful backhand.

As Vanitas reeled back with right hammer raised, Ventus demanded to know what the fuck he thought he was doing.

Vanitas wiped his eyes and looked around him clearly for the first time that night.

Three wide-eyed strangers, two boys and one girl, greeted him. The silver haired boy he had almost attacked was still draped across the kitchen tiles in shock. The girl whose tits he said he'd burn stood arm in arm with a boy with startling blue eyes, mad spikes of chestnut brown hair with beach blond, natural highlights- and if Vanitas didn't know any better- the sun kissed, freckle free skin native only to Destiny Islands.

When Vanitas caught sight of the badly edited tattoo on the boy's right wrist, held out like an offering as he clutched the girl in his arms, the hammers dropped to the floor with his cigarettes.

"Spira," Vanitas cocked his head towards him. The boy pursed his thick pink lips and nodded in return, muttering, "Ronso."

Ventus looked between both of them in a combination of rage, interest, and disgust. "Wait, do you two know each other or something?" he snapped.

"He's from the Islands," Vanitas responded, pointing to the Spirian with a glower. "Part of a rather popular gang over there- formerly, judging by the bad tat job."

Ventus raised his brows and stared at the Spirian in shock.

The boy blubbered and squeaked that his father had made him tattoo it on his arm when he was five. "I had no idea what it meant until I started school, and I never got enough money together to erase it properly!" he insisted.

"It's fine, Sora," Ventus said with tenderness, grasping the boy's inked arm and squeezing. "You don't have to explain yourself."

"I'd sure fucking like an explanation," Vanitas fumed. He snatched up cigarettes from the floor and relit them with matches from the kitchen cabinet as he slung the hammers over the countertop. The girl at Sora's side winced as they clanged into the sink.

In the blink of an eye, Ventus' wrath was upon him.

"These are my friends from my summer program," he snarled syllable by syllable, rounding Vanitas back towards the open door to the fire escape as the silveret scrambled into the living room behind him. "Kairi, Riku, and Sora, Sora being the guy I talked to you about the night I got back," he added pointedly.

Vanitas' cigarette tusks sagged against his lips. He blinked at Sora again.

The brunet scratched his elbow in discomfort, shifting from foot to foot under a cloud of grief. His friends looked on Vanitas as if he were a wild animal.

When Vanitas looked at Ventus, his blue eyes reflected humiliation.

Snapping his cigarettes from his mouth and stubbing them out against the sink side, Vanitas chucked them in the trash and folded his hands in front of him, mumbling apologies to everyone, adding that he had just been through two of the worst days of his life. When he attempted explaining himself under his breath, Ventus cut him off with, "I know."

"You know what I've been doing for the past twenty four hours?" Vanitas breathed.

Ventus shut his eyes and said Xehanort called after dropping Vanitas off at the gym parking lot.

"Did you know I was stuck there for five hours repairing my Jeep?" Vanitas intoned.

Ventus furrowed his brows and scoffed, demanding to know why the hell he had to repair his car in the gym parking lot.

"Because some assholes slashed my tires and canopy," Vanitas hissed. "There was a rock in my exhaust pipe. Whole fucking vehicle is barely drivable."

Ventus opened and closed his mouth before muttering that he was sorry. "But that doesn't excuse what else happened."

"You don't know the full story," Vanitas replied.

Kairi flinched when he held out his hand for her to shake. When she would not touch him, he shrugged and moved onto Riku, who glanced him up and down in what Vanitas suspected was typical Guado fashion, if he recognized family affiliation by demeanor at all.

Once the ravenet reached Sora, he rose to his full height and hissed that he'd heard a lot about him. "You're apparently quite memorable," he growled.

To his surprise, the brunet stepped forward to meet him, eyes shining with bravery. How sweet. If he knew what Vanitas had done to one of his more tolerable coworkers not twenty-four hours ago, he would have shit his pants.

Before Vanitas could intimidate the squirt any more, Ventus drove between them and caught Vanitas by the arm, murmuring with a sharp grin that Sora was memorable because he was one of the loveliest people he had ever met.

The crippling silence as Vanitas and Ventus stared each other down made Riku, Kairi, and Sora peep towards each other with dark glances. Finally, Vanitas relinquished Sora's palm and forced on a "real" smile, bowing and laughing that he was terrible at introducing himself.

Sora relaxed immediately, revealing a crinkling, beautiful beam.

Vanitas' heart skipped a beat and fell through his ribs when he was struck by just how radiant the Spirian was. He could smell sunscreen off of him, practically taste the salt of the sea that rustled from his body every time he flinched. When he tried catching Ventus checking the boy out, all he received was a pointed, scary glower. Averting his gaze, he asked what the four of them were planning on doing for the rest of the evening.

"We were waiting to take you out for ice cream," Ventus said with bitterness.

Vanitas' heart sunk further. To make up for it, he sucked in a grin and asked if there was any way he could repay everyone for the hurt he had caused. "Can I have a shower and then treat you all?" he insisted. "I won't be more than five minutes, and then I'll take you guys wherever you want- on me. I look practically human when I clean myself up." When the laughs he wished for never came, he turned and fled, undressing feverishly on his way to the bathroom, attracting Sora and Kairi's curious glances as he hid behind the shower curtain and shoved the cold water on. In seconds he was underneath scrubbing himself down, but he could still hear what the others were saying outside the barely open door.

" _That's_ your boyfriend?"

"Yeah."

"He has blood all over him…"

"He's not violent towards you, is he?"

"No. It's nothing to worry about guys, he was sixteen the last time this happened."

"Did something horrible happen?"

"When he was sixteen?"

"Well, now, but…"

"…"

"… Just so you know, dude, psychos start showing their true colors in their early twenties, so… don't get yourself murdered."

"Yeah, I- I'd be really worried. His behavior? That's not normal, it's really not. It's scary."

"Why don't you guys wait outside?"

The second to last admission had been from the Spirian. The one before had been from his Guado friend.

Vanitas ground his teeth as he thought of how sweet curb stomping the douchebag would be. Once he had washed and brushed his teeth, he tried on warm smiles in the mirror. When he settled on one he thought looked genuine, he popped into the living room in just a towel and beamed that he would only be a few minutes getting dressed. When he heard the fire escape door slam and saw Ventus trudge back inside alone, with eyes cast down, his shoulders sagged and he asked what had happened.

"I sent them home," Ventus responded.

Vanitas' exhale turned into a groan of despair. Then he set his jaw and hurried forward, towel clung around his waist like a vice with his right hand. "I wasn't in the bathroom more than five minutes," he insisted, "they're probably just getting into their car-"

Before he could move another step, Ventus stopped him and held him back.

When Vanitas blinked from the blonde's palm on his bare chest to the icy look in his eyes, he cocked his head to the side and begged. "Please let them back in, Ventus," he whispered. "I'll do whatever you want-"

"I want them to go home," Ventus cut in reply. His face contorted with the rage he had been bottling from the moment Vanitas put down his hammers. "Kairi, one of the kindest, purest hearted people I know," he incised, "was embarrassed because she pissed herself. She's afraid you're going to stalk her. Riku is livid. Said if he'd known a psycho was coming up to the house he would have been ready-"

"I'm not a psycho-" Vanitas tried to insist, but Ventus shoved him back so that the ravenet stumbled and let go of his towel, catching the blond by the wrists for support.

"Well you acted like one!" roared Ventus. Vanitas blinked in surprise as he looked at him.

He had forgotten how much Ven had grown since they were children. He'd only been a scrawny fourteen-year-old when Vanitas fucked him for the first time. Now, though he still had a ways to go before he became a man, he was nowhere near a boy anymore. Finally, he was growing into his limbs. The heart in his chest was an invisible pair of wings that pulled him up and down with each breath. His fuming, rancorous expression as he tore his fingers through his golden hair was practically divine.

If the last defenses guarding whatever Vanitas hid deep in his heart melted away, he would have sunk to the carpet and worshiped him then and there, sprawled naked and glistening without shame. But, because his defenses remained, so did he, standing gob smacked and unable, for one of the few times in his life, to say a word. Ventus restrained himself as well. Instead of spitting fire he opted for scowling into the sink, curling his hands like steel bars against the rim as he stared at the hammers inside.

"I can't believe these problems have started again," he said in a low voice. When Vanitas looked for the tiniest sliver of retreat, like a trembling lip, a cracking note, or a sniffle, he found nothing. Ventus stared ahead as if daring the universe to _try_ and move him, to _try_ and rotate or continue orbiting.

"Nothing is starting again," Vanitas said.

The admission was a match to the pile of gunpowder sitting below Ventus' feet. "I get a call from Xemnas saying that you've beaten through the face of the coworker you _seem_ to get along with the best, you've been fired, sent to jail, and then I get a call from Xehanort saying he had to fucking bail you out like the good old days, and then just when I hope that you haven't reversed four years, you swing a hammer through your fucking apartment wall and scare away some of the greatest people I've ever met! Thank _gods_ I don't fucking live here or you would be gone!"

"Ventus, if you knew what Zexion was saying to me before I went ape shit, you'd understand-"

"Was any part of you or the people you love in imminent danger?" hissed Ventus, "And your pride doesn't fucking count!"

"He insulted my sexuality and he insulted where I came from-"

"Being-a-bottom-is-not-an-insult," Ventus spelled out. "And don't say beating the shit out of people for dissing your family is an 'islander' thing, because Sora would never do that."

"Yeah, Sora looks like he comes from one of the cushier islands," Vanitas sneered.

"I don't even know why you'd be insulted," Ventus snapped. "You don't love any of your family, anyway."

The knife cut what it was supposed to. Vanitas had to claw his hands behind his back to keep from slapping Ventus through the wall.

"You know nothing about me or my family," he spat, near enough to Ventus' face for his words to burn.

Ventus clapped so close to Vanitas' eyes that he flinched.

"Ex-fucking-actly!" Ventus bellowed. "You never tell me you love me, you never introduce me to your friends, you never say a word about your family-"

"You're my best friend-"

"Yeah? You have a funny fucking way of showing your affection-"

"You seemed to love the way I showed affection when we were on Xehanort's desk-"

"I was a little boy!" Ventus boomed. "I didn't know anything about-"

"Fourteen," Vanitas corrected." You were fourteen years old."

"I was a baby!"

"And I wasn't?" Vanitas cut back.

"You were sixteen-"

"I was fifteen an hour before!" Vanitas bellowed. "You stalked me from the moment you met me and I told you to fuck off, so you waited till I was at my most vulnerable and then you sprang on me, so don't blame me if it wasn't all bunnies and roses like you'd fantasized it-"

"It never would have been my fantasy no matter how you screwed me!"

"Oh yeah? Why not?"

"Because I wanted to be the one fucking you!"

Vanitas reeled back in shock, scoffing to keep his confusion from overriding his sanity. When he glanced towards Ventus again, the boy wore such a strange expression that Vanitas could barely meet his eye.

"That kid in Xehanort's office, the way he held himself when he knew no one was watching... _that_ was the person I was looking for the night I got back," Ventus whispered. "But every time you fuck or fight, it's the same. You run away."

"I do not run away," Vanitas spat, tasting the lie as it left him. His shoulders and knees hurt. When he realized it was because he was cowering, he scowled and lifted a foot to move. But he couldn't budge. That would mean Ventus was right about him. It would mean Ventus won. He hated losing.

"You ran away from home, you ran away from school, you ran away from Xehanort, you run away from me every chance you get. You haven't even been able to meet my eye for two fucking weeks. Ever since I fucked you, you flinch every time I come near you. And now, you've started fighting again."

Vanitas' stomach dropped as he insisted that that was not true. Again, it was. That's why it hurt so much. It was humiliating. He thought he had been able to hide the monster inside him. The one chained and cowering in the dark. Fuck, why did Ventus shine so brightly near him? Why did every second at his side make Vanitas feel like he deserved him less?

"Did you know that Xehanort sexually assaulted me on our little drive home?" Vanitas evaded. "I finally didn't run away, Ventus! Go me!"

"Running away is what got you into that situation in the first place!"

"Do you not care at all?"

"No, not if it's a tactical evasion, no I don't fucking care because you don't either. You don't care about anything-"

"Just tell me who you want me to be and I'll be him!" Vanitas thundered.

Ventus slammed his fist against the kitchen counter and screamed in rage. "I want you to be the boy I met six years ago-"

"I'm the same now as I was then, the kid you're fantasizing is in your fucking head-"

"No, you just pushed him down because he didn't fit your fucking public performance of who you want the world to think you are-"

"Well then isn't a step backwards a step in the right direction-"

"No, it's not a step at all, it's a fucking evasion masked by violence!"

For a moment the pair came to armistice, leaning against wall or counter gasping in exhaustion.

Vanitas stared at the carpeted floor; noticing spots of blood indenting the path he had tread not fifteen minutes ago. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. "So in your perfect world, Ventus, where would I be now?"

"Well you'd be strong enough to look me in my fucking eye, for a start-"

"And how would you have proposed to get me to that point?" Vanitas hissed, wincing against Ventus' glower.

There was a pause. Ventus' gaze narrowed. "I would have made you more comfortable with letting go," he explained. "I never wanted much."

"So what the fuck did you want?" Vanitas asked.

"I wanted to lift you up and protect you."

"No," Vanitas snarled, clinging the wall behind him to keep from curling up and crying. "You wanted to tame a wild animal and add that to your trophy collection. Because dominating a saber tooth tiger isn't a charity drive, it's a fucking achievement."

"Motherfucker, you just hate feeling submissive, don't you?"

"The only one who complains about domination is you, Ventus."

"Bullshit!" Ventus roared. "Your colleague has a smashed face to prove it!"

"Then you should have seen what I was planning to do to that silver haired shit of a friend of yours-"

"I'm fucking done-"

"Wait," Vanitas gasped, dashing forward and skidding on his hands and knees before the door Ventus was mowing towards. "Please don't go," he said, clasping together his palms. "You say you don't want much, but the things you demand take years for a person like me-"

"Then you should have started when you were young like you said you would-"

"Listen, I promise-"

"You made a promise for every day of the month and you haven't kept a word."

"This was just a setback-"

"Is that what you call broken promises? 'Setbacks?'"

"I've corrected so many things-"

"You haven't corrected anything!" Ventus spat. "You just held it off until it bit you in the fucking ass! If you'd corrected your violence problem, you'd be able to go back to school, but the truth is, you're too fucking proud to get help-"

"I'm not going to a fucking psychiatrist-"

"Well that's a pity, Van, because you need serious help," Ventus warbled. "And if you don't get it, I won't deal with your bullshit anymore."

Vanitas reeled back in shock. Just like when Ventus had first told him about Sora, the temperature in the room dropped hundreds of degrees, until Vanitas' breath flurried before him like shards of ice. "What?" he plead.

Ventus' shoulders sagged as he shook his head. "I have been trying so hard these past few months," he said. "And I'm reaching the end of my line. I really am. And if things get any worse…" Ventus trailed off, dusk eclipsing his cerulean eyes. "I can't do it, anymore. I can't save this." As his shoulders shook and tears tumbled over his cheeks like beacons of hope, Vanitas knelt before him and embraced him around the knees.

"Hey, I'll correct it all," Vanitas cooed in desperation. "I'll go back to school, I'll watch my anger, I promise."

"Look me in the eye when you promise."

"I-"

"Look in my eyes."

Vanitas stared at the tiled floor, cupping his hands into fists to protect them from shaking. His teeth chattered as he cowered and glanced upwards. The moment his gaze caught Ventus' fluttering lower lashes, he stifled a sob. "I- I can't," he gulped.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know what will happen if I do," Vanitas lied. "I don't want you to see how not good enough I am for you."

"You don't want me to see that I have power over you?"

"I-"

"Vanitas, if you don't throw me some sort of bone, this relationship is going to starve."

"You're forcing me onto a ledge."

"What if I know the other side is good for you? Don't you trust me?"

 _Why would I trust anyone with my heart?_ The baby voice whispered in Vanitas' head. _Anyone can hurt anyone else so easily. Especially the people who love them._

"How about we take it one day at a time?" Vanitas offered. "You can't grow a mountain in a day."

"If you'd been working on it when you were supposed to, we'd be where we needed to be already," Ventus snapped. "So since you broke your promises, I can't guarantee that I'll be able to keep mine. That's the best I can give you."

Vanitas groped through the darkness, nodding to veil his grief.

When he glanced around, he saw the bones of Ventus' conquests sprawled across the floor, warning him with whispered pleas to escape before he fell any deeper into the lion's den. A t-shirt Ven had bought so they could watch his high school struggle tournaments in twin tops, one of a pair that got switched between the two of them so often Vanitas didn't know which had belonged to whom in the first place. The pink tissue paper from the Destiny Islands sex shop Ventus had scoured on his prep vacation, seated proudly atop the throne of trash lining the recycling bin, taunting Vanitas with the memory of Ventus piercing him, the first time a man had ever taken him. Each flutter in the draft from the window above whispered, _lucky you, that it was him. How underserving you're proving yourself to be now._ The crumpled love letter he had written in the gym, torn and caked in blood after it fell from his pocket under the threshold of his bedroom door as he undressed. A framed picture from the first time he and Ventus had met, Ventus glowing with a bright freckled grin as he slung his arm over Vanitas' shoulder, Vanitas gurning and sneering up through thick black brows like a slack jawed monster, yellow eyes piercing from his halos of bruises and thorny lashes, nose sunken and front teeth knocked out from a fight he had lost the night before.

Ventus had cried when those teeth were replaced by fakes, sobbed when Xehanort gifted Vanitas a nose job three years later, when the last external evidences of his rabid brokenness had been wiped clean. Not long after, the baby god had caught Vanitas weeping in Xehanort's office, crouched in the corner with the lights turned off, hands clutched over his naked chest like shackles.

Ventus had gathered him in his arms, the same joyous beam in the picture dazzling his face again. Then Vanitas had backed him to the desk and conquered him, showing viciously what an animal he was. If the baby god had not closed his eyes in defeated ecstasy, he would have noticed Vanitas bury his sobbing cheek in his chest, soul bleeding to death as he hissed about how good it felt inside Ventus' body, screaming the same words inside his head in a strangled, begging cry.

Then, Ventus had clutched Vanitas' ass and pulled him closer.

Vanitas had come immediately, moaning into the dip of Ventus' divine sternum. Only after that did he have the strength to glance down, to wipe Ventus' weeping baby god cheeks and kiss them. Every thrust inside the boy thrust the ravenous monster in Vanitas' heart deeper and deeper down.

"Vanitas!" Ventus roared, slamming one of the hammers against the aluminum sink basin.

Vanitas jolted to attention and blinked up, utterly lost.

Ventus stared down in revulsion. "Were you even listening?" he whispered.

"I was thinking," Vanitas snapped. "I was thinking about when we first met. When I had my teeth knocked out."

Ventus stared at Vanitas like he was crazy. Deflated, he turned for the door again.

Vanitas crawled in front of him and blocked his path with his arms cast out as if pulled by invisible strings.

"Vanitas, let me go," Ventus intoned.

Vanitas shook his head. Then, gritting his teeth, he glanced into Ventus' eyes. As soon as he met their soft, sea blues, he shook under the weight of himself until he could barely hold his body up. He bit his lip. Tasted familiar, soothing iron.

Ventus grimaced in horror above him, kneeling down to meet his face. "Vanitas, stop," he hissed. "You're hurting yourself."

"I thought you liked when I hurt myself," Vanitas spat without helping it. When Ventus slapped him, he gasped and cried out.

Ventus' hands encircled his cheeks in a flash.

As Vanitas broke down before him, sinking into the tile floor with limp limbs, Ventus caught him and cooled him down with gentle kisses and strokes. Then, he drove Vanitas' face towards him and forced him to look into his eyes.

Vanitas stared into their scorching pools in terror, whimpering the closer they got, until their golden lids rolled over and pierced him, the lips beneath capturing his own and enslaving them.

Vanitas let Ventus kiss him naked against the fire escape door without qualm, trying to ignore when Ventus' arm slipped from his back to his backside, searching him for weak spots until he groaned at every touch. When the heat and strength of the baby god's erection bit between Vanitas' thighs, he broke from Ventus' lips and freed it from his jeans.

Ventus swallowed Vanitas' lips again as he ground the pillar of flesh into the mound guarding the ravenet's entrance, slick from sweat and shower water. His hands twined through Vanitas' sopping hair, pulling at the little fuzzies lining the nape of the boy's dark neck.

Vanitas groaned louder, panting and lolling his head back until his throat was exposed.

Ventus attacked it that moment, biting and sucking as much as he could. When his fingers thrust unceremoniously inside Vanitas, Vanitas growled for him to just go in. "I shit ages ago and haven't eaten anything since," he whispered in encouragement.

"You had dinner with Xehanort," Ventus gusted in reply.

"No, I didn't," Vanitas said. "I'm completely empty."

"I know you ate because Xehanort said what you ate," Ventus snarled.

"I threw it up in the bathroom," Vanitas confessed. He moaned as Ventus bit him in the soft brown skin over his nipple.

"Vanitas, you fucking idiot," Ventus winced in disgust. "That's what I tasted, _fuck…_ "

"Did you think I'd stomach anything that motherfucker forced on me?" Vanitas snarled, remembering a semblance of the strength that had kept him sane until today.

"Why did you let him buy you dinner in the first place?" Ventus asked.

"I couldn't say no," Vanitas retorted, his voice too close to a whine for his comfort. "He enacted the old rule."

"Vanitas, you're twenty years old-"

"I can't help that he still has power over me," Vanitas snapped. "That's why I ran away in the fucking first place."

"You ran away because he had power over you?" Ventus growled.

Vanitas rolled his eyes and snarled, "yes! As you love reminding me every chance you can fucking get!"

"Do I have power over you?" Ventus whispered.

Vanitas could feel his cool, predatory stare digging into him. It was the same stare he had pierced him with for months. He snapped that of course he did. But his voice cut off when he heard the crinkle of paper and the roll of a condom. His breathing hitched and shallowed against his will. His heart hammered in his chest. "Ha," he tried to laugh. "If only your Destiny Islands friends saw me now, that girl would piss herself laughing- aAhhh…" He gasped, shivering in ecstatic agony as Ventus pressed his full length into him slowly.

"You were saying?" Ventus whispered against his ear.

Vanitas could not help it. As Ventus' cock pushed and stretched past his skin, he came, stuttering as it splattered across Ventus' shirt and jacket. "Fuck," he breathed in mortification, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Ventus beamed, the muscles of his abdomen writhing as he tore the shirt and jacket off. The closer he sunk, the more the warmth of his body sizzled into Vanitas' skin, making his whole body ache for closeness.

Vanitas hooked his legs around Ventus' thighs and pressed his feet into the baby god's clothes, helping him kick away his briefs and jeans, each unintentional thrust forcing Vanitas' mouth into an open, pained gape.

As Ventus shed his human clothes, he eclipsed the kitchen, rising like an Everest to his feet as his blue eyes burned hot coals against molten gold. He swarmed Vanitas in his arms, one hand clutching Vanitas' ass as the other circled under his arm, his fingers clutching towards the beginning of Vanitas' hair on the back of his neck. Since when had he become strong enough to lift Vanitas' up without so much as a teeter?

The sensation of being with a stranger returned, this time twice as suffocating as before. As Vanitas shot up with Ventus' warmth surrounding, swaying with the baby god's tipping, giggling form, his stomach dropped and his head swam, splitting with pain. As black dots invaded his vision and nausea made him gulp, he wrenched himself over Ventus' shoulder and threw up over the hammers in the sink.

Ventus' back tensed as he yelped and attempted springing forward, but Vanitas' hands clutched against the sink rim rooted him in place. As he fought to keep his balance, he swiveled his head to face Vanitas and demanded to know what was wrong.

Vanitas shook his head and rubbed his eyes, snuggling closer to his lover's burning skin without realizing.

"Vanitas, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Ventus cried. "Gods…"

"I'm sorry," Vanitas pinched, clutching tighter when Ventus tried escaping him. The baby god swiveled Vanitas around, sat him on the counter, and fumbled through the cupboards behind for a cup. When he got it and filled it with water, he demanded that Vanitas swish and drink it down. Vanitas did so without question. When he finished, Ventus ran the cold water again and wiped down Vanitas' eyes with it.

"Baby," he started, capturing Vanitas' attention again.

 _Baby?_ Rancor and shamed threatened to engulf him. He had graduated from V Grr to 'baby,' an infant who needed to be held and cuddled."I wrote you a love letter," he vomited again, this time words that he could never take back.

Ventus' blue pools widened, the dark boats anchoring their centers dilating with their approach. "Really?" he gushed, ghosting his fingers up Vanitas' thighs to rest them on his hips. When he tried pulling out, Vanitas wrapped himself tighter around him, begging him closer for fear of being as empty as he felt.

"I wrote it all week but I couldn't give it to you," Vanitas gushed, unable to stop. "It's on the floor."

"Vanitas, can I come?" Ventus gusted, wincing at the blush prickling his cheeks. "That got me close."

Vanitas felt him throbbing inside. Nodding, he waited as Ventus pumped into him with fast, harsh strokes. Whether his nausea masked the discomfort or made everything worse, he did not know.

Once Ventus finished, he carried Vanitas into the bathroom and lowered him in the tub, swiveling the taps until the water was warm, stopping the plug, and waiting for the water to rise around Vanitas' hips. As Vanitas draped over the tub side, Ventus rubbed warm water over his shoulders and back. Then, discovering the letter, he jumped up, retrieved it, and snuggled at the bath's side, mouthing as he read it to himself. When he got to the end, he narrowed his eyes and frowned, wrinkling his nose in confusion.

"Vanitas, this part is smeared, wait-" when he deciphered it a familiar, brilliant white smile burst across his face. When he stared at the dark boy's bleary eyed, exhausted form, he kissed him on the cheek and wiped him down with warm water again. Then he crawled around the bathroom drawers and brought out Epsom salts.

"Stand up," he commanded.

Vanitas grumbled but complied.

Ventus spread a cup and a half in the water, filled it up higher, and swirled the contents around until the entire room stank of ginger. Then, to Vanitas' surprise, he stepped in behind him and lowered them together, until Vanitas leaned and stared up at the ceiling from Ventus' soft, firm back. As his nausea ebbed, his eyes drooped. Ventus stroked up and down his arms with the tips of his fingers.

"You know you're the one making yourself sick, right?" he whispered. "Your body is in high alert all the time-"

"Well, why do you think that is?" Vanitas shot back, relaxing against his will as Ventus stroked his hair. "In the span of one week I've found out our whole relationship is a fucking lie-"

"I'm not just talking about this week," Vanitas felt Ventus say through his back. "Ever since I first met you, you acted differently when you were on your own from when you were around other people."

Vanitas groaned and leaned his head over Ventus' shoulder, making the mistake of meeting the boy's ice blue eyes. Once captured, he couldn't retreat. "Feels like I'm fucking dying," he whispered.

Ventus scoffed and patted his cheek. "It's just growing pains." When he noticed the tightness of Vanitas' jaw, he scowled and forced it down with his thumbs. As soon as the passage was unblocked, Vanitas began sobbing. As he sunk lower under the water, Ventus swept him up in a blanket of joy, rocking him back and forth as he cooed.

"It's okay, just cry, it's fine, Vanitas."

"I don't think you really love me," Vanitas hiccupped.

"Of course I love you," Ventus gasped. "Why else would I stick by you this long?"

"I don't want to be the person you want me to be," Vanitas begged. "That person can't survive on his own."

"He won't have to," Ventus cooed. His erection bloomed again. "I'll be his light."

Vanitas groaned as Ventus pressed him apart with his fingers. The familiar pillar of flesh, bare now, stretched inside him again. This time there was no pain. Vanitas let his legs fall apart, sighing as Ventus' knees rose from the water between them. Honey thighs entwined Vanitas' like vines, trapping him closer. Sun kissed fingers snaked to his belly button, pinching the broken skin.

Vanitas stared at his moldy bathroom ceiling. Relief washed over him as Ventus pumped into him, slow at first, then fast enough for the water to jitter and stream around them in whirlpools. Electricity passed through each touch, fluttering Vanitas' lashes and making his heart stop and start. As Ventus' voice crooned in his ear, he gasped for breath, drowning under waves of pleasure. Then, he was disappearing again, falling down and down and down until he remembered he was in Ventus' arms, and Ventus was coming inside him, and everything was still again, and he noticed the white liquid foaming the water between his legs and dripping across Ventus' palm from where Ventus had shielded Vanitas' penis from spraying anywhere but the tub. Ventus raised the palm and pressed his fingers into Vanitas' mouth, making him lick it off. It made Vanitas' lip curl. Ventus had said he was putting out? Even if it were shit, Vanitas probably still would have cleaned him off. Anything for Ventus. That would be written on his tombstone.

Here lies Vanitas. Fallen in love. And falling, and falling, and falling, and gone.

 **•••**


	6. Mating Rituals

**•••**

 _ **Chapter 6:**_

 _ **Mating Rituals**_

 _ **•••**_

Vanitas laid like a corpse for most of the night, arms crossed over his middle, legs inches apart, and eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. He thought about the inevitable trial for his gym brawl. Who would represent him? He really didn't want to count on Xehanort's help again, but with the way things were, what other choice did he have? Maybe if he finally just let the old man fuck him, he'd leave him the fuck alone.

He traced his own nipples with the tips of his fingers, running over the ridges above his right where Ventus had nipped him the evening before. He counted the amount of money he had left in his head, working out how little he could spend to get him through the rest of the month and wincing as he realized he would never get his security deposit back now that he had a hammer hole in his kitchen wall.

A light shone through the blinds of his window, falling across his dark chest in thin parallel lines. It blinked. A car horn honked. Mixed voices filtered up, unintelligible and shouting. Wasn't it a little late for a backyard altercation?

Vanitas smirked in nostalgia, wondering what time it was. He refused to leave Ventus' side to check lest the boy wake and realize that he would be much happier sleeping over with his Destiny Islands buddies, laughing and giggling about clubs, beaches, and prep vacations without having to worry about one of them getting angry and beating the shit out of everyone. As Vanitas went back over the events of the week before, he tried seeing everything from Ventus' perspective. The more he thought, the more his brows furrowed.

Ventus had loved his violence when he first met him. Loved the way Vanitas crawled back to the judge's mansion night after night: this time with a split lip, that time with missing teeth, then a cut chin, a black eye, and on and on until he broke his nose so beyond recognition that Xehanort had to pay to get it fixed. Even after Vanitas ran away from home and school, Ventus applauded him. Then the problems started. Unemployment. Homelessness. Longer sentences: more and more black marks to be taken off of his record, darker and darker blood to wash off his hands. Through it all, Ventus remained.

Wait. No. There had been one other time Ventus threatened to go, an event that Vanitas remembered like yesterday now but couldn't have recalled a detail about a week ago.

It had been in Ventus' bedroom. Vanitas had been living on the street for a month and Ventus had snuck him into his room at the beginning of the following week. By the end of that week, Vanitas' presence was becoming impossible to hide. Roxas had been there: arms crossed, phone in hand, threatening to call Eraqus unless Ventus told Vanitas to leave. Ventus had been curled up on his bed, sobbing into his pillow with Vanitas shielding him like a mountain, hulking over Roxas and roaring for him to make him go. He had been so sure Ventus would support him and tell Roxas to fuck off. But he had been wrong.

 _I don't want to go out with you, anymore,_ Ventus had sobbed.

Vanitas winced his eyes shut to force the memory away. It fell to darkness, but the emotions it brought up haunted him without reprieve.

Ventus sighed and mumbled gibberish at his side.

Vanitas moved his head a centimeter so he could look at him.

The baby god's golden face blushed as his cheek mushed into Vanitas' pillow. He whistled as he slept, mouth hung open and plush lips lolling like flowers, upper blossom fluttering with each little snore. He slept stomach down with his head crunched to the side, pressed up. His neck would pay for it the following morning.

Vanitas ground his teeth in hesitation. He'd wake him up if he tried moving him. If Ventus weren't irritated when he came to, Vanitas would be. He knew that. Feared that his poison speared defenses would lash out at Ventus the moment Vanitas felt unsafe but capable of self-protection. His hands snaked towards Ventus' body beneath the covers, slithering around his chest and rotating his shoulder up as slowly as possible.

The baby god jolted and snuggled in his sleep, searching for Vanitas' body and rolling on top of it.

Vanitas froze in surprise. When he relaxed, breathing out over Ventus' hair, the boy slurred into his collar, "you'recold."

"I'm not," Vanitas lied.

Ventus snuggled until he rested face down along Vanitas' torso, chin tucked over Vanitas' shoulder, forehead cinched along his jaw. His legs slipped around Vanitas' thighs, opening. He shivered.

Vanitas pulled for the rim of the bedcovers and heaped them around the blonde's shoulders, tucking him in and nuzzling his face into his honey head, smelling the sweetness of his hair. _Gods..._ he groaned under his breath. Blood rushed between his legs: not enough for him to become erect, but enough for Ventus to notice and respond with his own.

Ventus' hands slipped around Vanitas' back, cupping his ass.

Vanitas rolled his eyes and sighed as Ventus' fingers began lightly kneading. The strokes became more sporadic the deeper Ventus fell asleep. When he was out completely, he began to snore again.

What would it be like to live with Ventus? To come home to him every night, not just whenever Ventus got away from school or clubs or Eraqus' watchful eye? When they had nine to five, high paying jobs?

That part was a fantasy. There was no question who would bring in the bread if the two of them made it to living together. Ventus was on track to becoming a lawyer, and a very good one. The only thing Vanitas was good at was beating the shit out of people. At one point he'd even entertained the thought of becoming a boxer or MMA fighter, but the logistics proved insurmountable. That, and the fear that embracing that lifestyle would reconnect him with his father.

What if he was a stay at home spouse? What if they adopted a kid together? Would Vanitas be the one looking after it?

"Hm," Vanitas sighed, lingering on the idea more than he liked to admit. If he listened, he could feel the beat of his and Ventus' hearts and the pulse of their breaths matching. As their souls overlapped, it became more and more difficult to keep open his eyes.

Soon he was out like a light. When he came to again, it was bright outside. He winced as he woke, stretching and peeping through the window blinds. The sun was high. What time was it? It must have been after four when he finally fell asleep. Now Ventus was gone.

Vanitas whined at the emptiness of his bed, hating being alone. As he considered masturbating, he heard the sound of laughing and chattering outside his closed bedroom door. Just when he felt the impulse to inspect it, the portal burst open and Ventus sailed through, bright smile sparkling like a spotlight over his flushed, freckled cheeks and chest.

"Rise and shine, Vanitas!" he sang.

Vanitas hissed like a cat and dove under his covers, rolling himself up in a burrito he hoped was impregnable. He smiled to himself when he felt a familiar lump collapse above him.

Ventus snaked his strong, thin fingers this way and that until they found an entrance.

Vanitas roared and snapped at a tubby thumb when it tickled his nose.

Ventus screeched in delight outside, hunting for another way through.

"What time is it?" Vanitas growled, hidden in a grin.

"Two o'clock! You slept like a log."

"Two?" Vanitas swore, oblivious as Ventus pried between his hands and opened him up like a clam. When sunlight hit his face, he yelped and dove back down, laughing as Ventus tackled him from behind. As the covers fell away and the boy tickled him around his inner thighs and down his sides, he howled and kicked madly.

"Come on, kitty, be good!" Ventus cooed in the familiar, baby whine that said he wanted playtime.

Vanitas grinned and mewled, curling his toes and pulsing his ass towards Ventus' crotch.

Ventus cried out in shock or delight, telling kitty to calm down. When he bent close to kitty's face, Vanitas snarled and snapped at him, pouncing and turning into a lion.

Suddenly there was a loud cough at the door.

Vanitas' head snapped up. When he saw two averted, cerulean eyes bathed in scarlet half hidden behind the threshold, he gasped and shoved back beneath the covers. Before his mouth could form into a bellow, Ventus pierced him with a foul glance that made him grit his teeth.

So the 'kitty, be good' game had been for an audience. Why the fuck did it have to be the chestnut headed ass wipe Vanitas nearly hammered in the face yesterday?

"Ventus, you have no right-" he started dangerously low, but the Spirian toeing the threshold of his bedroom broke the silence with another infuriating cough.

"I'm sorry for coming by," he gushed. "I thought this was where Ventus lived. And I was around the neighborhood and thought I'd come and apologize for how everything went last night. I didn't meant to wake you."

Vanitas blanched in revelation, snapping his glance towards Ventus' cool grin. "You had a stranger in my house while I slept?" he worded.

"Yeah, baby," Ventus cooed, unruffled. "I wanted you to get some rest. You were so sick."

"Sick?" Sora intoned.

"He vomited in the sink," Ventus shot. "He was so ashamed of the way he acted."

"Oh my gods, don't worry about it at all," Sora gushed, stepping towards Vanitas with a simpering wince. "Ventus said you were a hardcore guy-"

"I'd just had my Jeep vandalized," Vanitas interjected. "When I got home my fire escape was open and I heard Ventus screaming. I thought they'd come to my apartment for round two."

Sora furrowed his brows in befuddlement, no doubt wondering how any of their conversation in the kitchen from the night before could have inspired Vanitas to think hoodlums were attacking his boyfriend. "Wait," he blubbered. "Did you know the people who smashed up your Jeep?"

"Work colleagues," Vanitas shot back, encouraged by the interest. "Pretty vindictive."

"Vindictive?" Sora repeated. "Like revenge? Did you beat one of their buddies up, or something?"

Vanitas blanched again, this time from anxiety. "Uh..." he swallowed.

"Didn't one of them sexually assault you?" Ventus tried to help, the only evidence that he was lying being his pursed lips.

Vanitas crumpled, fumbling that it had been more like harassment. He hated blatant dishonesty. But here he was, milking down his actions for the benefit of Ventus' bubbly Spirian friend whose pitying, downtrodden expression made him want to scream.

"Vanitas, I am so sorry," Sora whispered. "And you're a Ronso, too…"

Vanitas' jaw clicked instinctually. His neck cracked as he rotated his head forty-five degrees. His fists clenched. His nostrils flared. His pectorals swelled. When he noticed Ventus widening his mouth and pointing to it, he scowled and unfurled his fingers, massaging them into the joints beneath his cheeks until his mouth released. He breathed out deeply and evenly. The anger ebbed. "I left my family when I was fourteen, so-"

"No, but by then it's ingrained," Sora responded eagerly. "The violence and poverty- paranoia, sexual assault. Spirians aren't nearly as bad, but I don't know what would have happened if my mom didn't leave my dad when I was a kid."

 _Hopefully he might have beaten you to death_ , Vanitas thought to himself, chuckling as he imagined the fucker's brilliant blue eyeballs popping out of his shattered head. The blood rushed to his fingers and toes as he imagined doing it himself. Then he felt Ventus' piercing stare. Sure enough, when he looked up, the baby god shone with fury. Vanitas withered.

Ventus knew him so well. He saw everything that Vanitas didn't wish to show.

"Islands mustn't be too bad now if everyone takes prep school holidays there," Vanitas muttered. He had intended it to come out good-natured, but after the first syllable dripped from him like acid, he gave up.

"It's cause of the marches," Sora gushed, indicating Ventus as he spoke. "It's an historic moment. The debate programs here and at my school decided to band together to do a project on the repeal process."

"Repeal?" Vanitas repeated in confusion.

"The 10th amendment, Vanitas," Ventus murmured.

Vanitas' mouth dropped. He shot to his bare feet, forgetting altogether that he was naked. "Seriously?" he breathed. His voice flew from him as if he was a little boy again. His skin glowed.

After hundreds of years of colonial constitutional law, the amendment prohibiting sex between men on the Islands was being defeated.

Ventus' Spirian friend blushed and averted his eyes, but not before taking a quick sweep down Vanitas' pulsing torso.

Ventus reeled when he noticed where Sora's attention lay, grinning in satisfaction and cooing at Vanitas that they were trying to.

When Vanitas remembered he was naked, he scrambled the bed sheets around him and shook his head. "Wow," he whispered. "I never would have thought…"

"Things are changing," Ventus beamed, throwing his arm around Sora's shoulder and looking him in the eye. "Twilight and Destiny Highs' partnership won major awards and scholarships. Undergrad in Radiant Garden won't know what hit it when we bust the place down."

"I'm just glad I decided to take lead of my chapter," Sora grinned, plump, tan cheeks flushed. "If I hadn't been president, I doubt we ever would have met."

"Guess fate brought us together," Ventus beamed warmly, making Sora blush more. The Spirian had a dark brown, heart shaped birthmark right beside his left eye.

Did Ventus find it attractive?

Vanitas had thought Sora was clear skinned before, but if he looked closer, he noticed an almost invisible puff of freckles dashed right across the bridge of the brunet's nose. Maybe he wasn't full Islander. That would explain his mother cutting him off from his tribe without qualm- lamentations on "paranoia," and "violence" didn't cut peacing out. No islander would shit on their culture that way, no matter how true the downsides were. But maybe all of his 'fast facts' were purely for Ventus' pleasure. The Spirian's head bobbed in reverence whenever the baby god spoke.

In return, Ventus puffed up his budding chest and arms: indicating, cocking his head, and rubbing behind his ears as if in a twisted mating ritual. Again, Vanitas was faced with the sensation of watching a stranger.

Two years ago, Ventus had identified as a typical, artsy bottom, hiding behind oversized acid washed denim jackets, pink circular sunglasses, tiny hoop earrings, drainpipe jeans, and clomping, metal clad pointy boots that made his feet look three times their size. Today he'd laid himself bare: stripping down to boxer briefs, bare blushing chest, and gloriously undone golden locks. If his muscles got any bigger, he could be mistaken for a frat boy, the thought of which made Vanitas sick. But Ventus did look good in his body.

The Spirian noticed, too. He was pitifully transparent. The way he laughed on the cusp of every joke, fired off a response within moments of Ventus asking something, trailed those searchlight cerulean eyes down Ventus' smooth, freckled belly button…

"You're not cold, are you?" Sora swallowed, patting awkwardly above Ventus' right nipple and sweeping his hand away in horror immediately after. "I, be-we-I just, I didn't mean to-" he stammered, whipping towards Vanitas in terror, but Ventus brushed it off.

Vanitas glared daggers at both of them, beating down the rancor clamoring through the pit of his stomach. How dare that little fucker...

"I'll put a top on if it makes everyone happy," Ventus muttered, shooting a pointed glance Vanitas' way before sweeping into the living room, picking a top off the floor, and maneuvering it over his shoulders, letting it fall crooked around his hips.

Vanitas hardened as he realized it was one of their struggle jerseys. He had rode Ventus in that top, on that floor, countless times, Ventus on his hands and knees thrusting his head and tongue forward as he whined and panted in euphoria, back arched down, t-shirt hem pulled askew and rubbing over his soft pink nipples and butting shoulder blades. One time, Vanitas had even fucked him in it behind Twilight High's fruit ball stadium, pulling the shirt hem up Ventus' back with his teeth as he rammed into the blond's ass from behind. Ventus had bit the front of the shirt and clutched the wall for dear life, pushing every moan that begged to move up his throat into the curl of his toes and the arch of his back lest one of the roaring fans overhead hear him scream.

Gods, those had been good days...

When Vanitas snapped out of his stupor and glanced up again, he noticed the Spirian staring him down from beneath thick brown eyelashes. The moment yellow met blue, blue widened and averted.

Vanitas' lip curled.

Sora laughed too hard at something Ventus said, inflating the blond even further.

Why was Ventus acting so nonchalant about his appearance all of a sudden when for years he had taken inane pride in preening himself like an Ariana Grande inspired peacock? The leg of his boxers tugged up his thigh, hem landing right below the crease of his ass as he leaned to scratch his back, pulling the struggle top further up his spine until one of the folds caught on his nipple.

Vanitas wanted to fuck him so bad.

From the bite of the Spirian's lip, it looked like he wanted to, as well. His eyes clung to Ventus' lips, jaw, nipples, crotch, and inner thighs on helpless repeat. And Ventus was eating it up, eyes twinkling as they narrowed with a mischievous grin, teasing the Spirian, making him blush harder, avert his gaze, peep at Vanitas, and break under warm giggles. They were flirting, and Ventus was way too good at it.

"The sunburn around your cheeks is pretty bad," Ventus cooed, running his finger along the bridge of Sora's perfect nose.

Vanitas' was the same, but paid for. He had a Ronso nose at birth: short, wide, and thick, with deep nostrils and a slightly darker underside. As he padded around his literally chiseled bridge and the beginnings of his cheeks, a strange nostalgia clutched through him. All he had left to tell the world who he was, were his eyes.

"Vanitas is off in space, again," Ventus sighed, cocking his head towards the bed bound boy in slight irritation.

Sora beamed wider, flashing his white teeth like the flash of a camera. "On the ball, Ronso!" he joked, clapping his hands in front of him. "You gotta focus! Ever played blitzball?"

"No," Vanitas responded flatly.

"We should play!" Sora responded, oblivious or uncaring of Vanitas' mounting rancor. "Or we could just play fruit ball, remember when we toured that law school in Disney City?"

"Million Dreams Award Ceremony?" Ventus grinned. "How could I forget?"

"You were a beast at fruit ball!" Sora crooned. Ventus shrugged, murmuring that he played tons of sports as a kid.

"I did nothing but spar with my buddy Riku," Sora laughed. "He was into judo and Brazilian jujitsu."

"Ventus did jujitsu," Vanitas cut in. Then he winked and lowered his chin so that his piercing yellow irises dug out from his black brows. "He's still never beaten me. Maybe me and Riku could have a test run, see where he stands. Or I you," he added with a wink.

Sora deflated and, if Vanitas was not mistaken, cowered a little bit.

"Vanitas is more out of practice than he thinks he is," Ventus warned. "If he's not careful, he might embarrass himself."

"I have a feeling I'd win," Vanitas shrugged with a snide, bobbing giggle, throwing off the bedcovers as he searched for underwear.

As the Spirian stared down Vanitas' unabashed naked form in shock, Ventus rolled his eyes in vexation.

When Vanitas found a pair of discarded briefs, he turned, displayed his package proudly, and hiked the shorts over himself with a little bob of his heels.

Ventus' stare was a wonderful mix of lust and disgust. When he caught Vanitas' eye, he straightened and slinked towards him, standing at his side with right foot behind him, between his bronze legs, and left foot bordering Vanitas' left, pointed at Sora. His left hand settled on his own hip. His right slipped down to stroke Vanitas' hip and right ass cheek. Then, it squeezed.

Vanitas' face pinked. His eyes fluttered closed. His arm rose around Ventus' shoulder. When he glanced towards the Spirian again, he rose his brows in challenge.

Sora looked crushed and at the same time, slightly aroused.

Ventus' hand squeezed Vanitas' ass again and spidered up his back to stroke the hairs on the nape of his neck, a place he had claimed as his own of late.

Vanitas loved and hated the sensation.

"Vanitas renounced violence three years ago," Ventus warned at his ear in a whisper. "So it doesn't matter who would win or lose, because he wouldn't fight at all."

"I could join a real dojo," Vanitas suggested. "Nothing wrong with wanting to protect what's important."

"Yeah," Sora interjected in a badly concealed sneer. "But if your judgment is shot and you protect someone that doesn't need to be protected against something that's not hurting them, then that just makes you paranoid aggressive."

"Look _Spirian_ ," Vanitas spat, self control cracking with each syllable. "Just cause I'm a Ronso who you saw at his worst doesn't mean I'm a fucking psycho- stop claiming me like I'm a FUCKING ANIMAL!" he bellowed behind him when Ventus pulled his hair.

Ventus reeled back in shock. He backed away. The muscles of his arms flinched.

Vanitas advanced on him with outstretched palms. "What? You going to slap me again cause I misbehaved?" he hissed.

Ventus' mouth flew open in horror.

"So if yesterday was your worst, is this your best?" Sora interjected, indicating Vanitas' hulking, pouncing form.

Vanitas whipped towards him with locked jaw. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that the Spirian was deliberately egging him on. But his peripheral vision was going. He was seeing red again. "You haven't seen me at my best yet, _deserter,_ " he snarled, spitting the last word in islander tongue.

Sora's eyes burst with glee. He pointed to Vanitas as if pointing to the hoodlum of the fifth grade, reveling in snitching on him for cursing. "See that, Ventus?" he simpered. "Do you know what he just called me? _Deserter_ in islander. It's a slur for someone who forsakes his or her tribe, just because my mother decided to leave an abusive relationship to save my life. People die over that slur, _Ronso_."

"My name is Vanitas," Vanitas boomed so loud the walls shook. "And I'm quite fucking aware of what people die over on the islands, you little-"

"Vanitas, Sora, STOP!" Ventus thundered, pressing against both of their chests and shoving them back.

Vanitas tore his hand across his nose and paced, sniffing up the moisture that was pooling along the inside of his nostrils. This always happened when he saw red. It was like the temperature of his head raised so fast his brain started dripping down his sinuses. When Ventus stopped him again, he bared his teeth.

The blonde caught him by the jaw and forced open his mouth. "Get control of your _fucking jaw, Vanitas_ ," he snarled. "You look like you're going to crack your crowns in half."

Vanitas whined and rolled his fists around the hinges dividing his upper teeth from his lower. As he softened, Ventus rubbed down his back as well. On cue, Vanitas' eyes began watering.

When Sora saw it, he relaxed in surprise.

"I apologize," Vanitas incised. His tongue tore through each consonant as if dissecting it.

Sora nodded and muttered "sorry," in return. He gave Ventus a wary glance. "You… you still want your day out?"

"Yeah, I do," Ventus murmured. "Give us a few hours to get ready. It's supposed to be a warm night, so we can go out later. And Sora-" he added as the boy made to leave, shooting him the most dazzling, confident smile he could muster, "By the time we're ready for you, Vanitas is going to prove how wonderful a guy he really is."

Sora failed to respond, silencing and slipping out the door without a sound.

As soon as his clanging steps on the fire escape disappeared, Ventus locked the door and turned to Vanitas with a look that could kill.

Vanitas snorted at him and shrugged. "I don't feel one bit guilty," he announced.

Ventus shoved past his shoulder and unclothed again, disappearing into the bathroom.

Vanitas tore off his briefs too and slipped in behind, catching the door with his thigh before Ventus could slam it on him.

"Vanitas, let me take a goddam shower in peace!" Ventus roared, shoving Vanitas back when the boy tried accosting him through the shower curtain.

As Vanitas hunted out his evasive lips and clutched at his ass, the blond struggled against him, gritting his teeth in a gorgeous snarl that made Vanitas so horny he threatened to dive in then and there.

Ventus yelped as he slipped against the shower tile. Vanitas caught his head and wrenched it back before it could drag across the shower knobs and tap.

Ventus balanced himself with his arms over his head, pushing off the shower wall. Vanitas clutched the nape of his neck with one fist. His other pressed against the wall over the baby god's head.

For a moment the pair stared at each other, Vanitas into Ventus' blues, Ventus into Vanitas' ambers. Time stilled. Utter calm breathed through Vanitas' core. Then they were kissing like they used to, Ventus curled around Vanitas like a pair of drainpipe jeans with one leg clasped around his waist and the other slipping against the shower tile around his legs.

Vanitas lowered them until the water streamed over their heads and backs, Ventus wincing face up into the spray. Droplets puddling down Vanitas' nose and along his upper lip. Ventus' body looked divine under the moisture: oiled, blushing, and spread down the middle. Vanitas slinked his finger down and let it find its way inside, causing Ventus to close his eyes, open his mouth, and arch his back. The baby god gargled as he tried to groan against shower water.

Vanitas sputtered laughter as Ventus spit it out, gaining a twitching smirk from the blond that made him melt against him.

Ventus panted as Vanitas located the hard, walnut sized lump on his inner wall and purred in delight when it was massaged, mumbling gibberish into the skin of Vanitas' neck.

Vanitas felt the blond's arm stroke up and down his back, igniting his sensitive sides and making him flinch. When the baby god squeezed his buttocks again he thrust forward and moaned against Ventus' hair.

Ventus chuckled through a luxurious sigh. Then, his fingers found Vanitas' entrance as well. Two slithered inside.

Was this how it was going to be? The two of them pleasuring each other? Vanitas' shoulders sagged in disappointment. Why was it that every time he tried inching things back to the way they used to be, Ventus set down a roadblock? As the blonde's fingers hunted and kneaded inside him, landing against his prostate and goading around it, Vanitas' skin flushed and his lips pursed against the sounds begging their way up his throat.

"Let go, Vanitas, please," Ventus begged below him. "You let go, and I'll let go, too."

Vanitas winced and bit his lip, chancing a dip into the deep pools of his lover's eyes. As icy blue shocked him, he rolled against the blonde's fingers with vigor and forced a nod. Ventus beamed and rolled as well, until they were grinding against each other's palms and into each other's erections. As Ventus kneaded harder, Vanitas copied him. He opened his mouth and wailed, surprised when Ventus wailed with him. _This isn't so bad_ , he decided. He felt equal in this. His throne had been taken from him, but at least he stood at his captor's height.

"Forget it, Vanitas," Ventus growled, reading Vanitas' mind.

Vanitas scowled, slowing against the impulse to pump. He tried concentrating on the body before him, lost in the thrust of the abdomen, the swirling, honey milk skin, and the little moles dotted here and there. When he found one under Ventus' jaw, he kissed it. Ventus let him take it with a contented sigh. When Vanitas dug into him harder, he burrowed back. They moaned in sync, heartbeats overlapping, breath catching, and bodies accelerating as one. Then they were coming together, escaping over each other's chests, licking each other away until it felt like there was nothing left but pumping, burning blood. They settled down in the tub basin and relaxed. Vanitas bit his lip to stop his returning tears. How long had it been since they had come together?

"Feels like centuries," Ventus answered for him, stroking his hair.

Vanitas chuckled and nipped Ventus' nipple until it bled, making the boy yelp in pain. As the baby god massaged the broken skin through whines, Vanitas snuggled his nose into the cleft of his sternum and whispered, _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , so low that he could barely hear the words himself.

"I love you, too," Ventus rumbled above, his chest echoing like waves in a deep cave.

"How do you read my fucking mind?" Vanitas scowled in bitter defeat, mewling into Ventus' stomach when the boy laughed above him. Ventus captured the nape of his neck again.

"You talk louder than you think when you're emotional," he cooed as he played with Vanitas' body.

"I'm always emotional," Vanitas snapped. And he was. Either ecstatic, or frantic with lust, or terrified, or furious, or broken with grief, or rancorous with boredom. The in-betweens were small. Ever since Ventus first asked to fuck him, a new sensation had made itself apparent, one that Vanitas supposed was love but couldn't place on its own. It was what had driven him for two weeks, what made him feel everything else in his body. It was slavery. Torture. It wasn't fair at all.

"Why did you wait to say it till now?" Ventus whispered.

"I don't know," Vanitas gulped back. "I didn't know how I felt till now. I didn't know I could feel this way at all."

"I'm honored," Ventus murmured.

Vanitas took the moment to turn the water off and pierce his lover with a serious frown.

Ventus raised a brow in question.

"I don't like the way you flirt with Sora," Vanitas confessed. "It makes me... uncomfortable."

"You mean like the time you flirted with that guy at Splash Island?" Ventus deadpanned. "Or the strippers in that nightclub we went to? Or the drag queen at Pride Week? Or, or, or?"

"This is different," Vanitas snapped, rolling his eyes. "I don't even remember those people, and most of them were to get a rise out of you. You spent half your summer alone with that Spirian. And before that, you were talking to each other, though for some reason, you didn't decide to tell me that till this morning."

"We've been working on the repeal project for a whole semester-"

"Whoa, first I've heard of that-"

"Vanitas," Ventus warned below him. "I told you plenty of times I was working with kids in Destiny Islands through Skype, you just never listened."

Vanitas pursed his lips, muttering that if he'd known there was a _guy_ involved… But Ventus caught his lips before he could finish.

Vanitas surrendered and kissed him, chasing after his tongue and clasping it around his own, brushing his pink lips into Ventus', blushing and pressing with want. When they divided they sighed and breathed with each other. Then Ventus asked if Vanitas wanted to have a shower together.

"You're going to pay my water bill this month," Vanitas slurred, fighting sleep.

Ventus snorted and told him to stop attacking him when he was about to have a wash.

"Can't help it," Vanitas grinned, nibbling Ventus' stomach. "That's when you're at your most vulnerable."

"When are you your most vulnerable?" Ventus winked, pinching Vanitas' ass.

Vanitas growled deep in his throat and pressed his forehead into Ventus' pectoral. "You can't take your hands off my ass," he muttered.

"Evading," Ventus sang. He slithered from under Vanitas and turned on the water again, getting it warm before reaching over Vanitas for shampoo. When he heaped some in his palm, he clapped it over Vanitas' scalp and massaged it in.

Vanitas closed his eyes and leaned into Ventus' touch. "I'm most vulnerable when you threaten to leave," he whispered: an echoing, ancient dread rippling deap in the folds of his memory.

Ventus' hands stopped. Vanitas could feel his indignation rise through his curling fingers.

"Why do you have to take the fun out of everything," the blond muttered.

Vanitas snorted. "That's my line, Ventus," he cooed. "I guess I feel vulnerable a lot of times- mostly because of you."

"Is it because you don't want to lose me?" Ventus whispered, stroking around Vanitas' ears as he rinsed the shampoo out.

"Course I don't want to lose you," Vanitas scoffed. "I've been with you this long, can't stand being without you anymore, I guess."

"I think you're secretly very sensitive," Ventus crooned. He soaped up his hands and rolled his fingers around the inside of Vanitas' ears, making him wince and pinch his chin to his shoulder. Ventus giggled behind him, kissing his neck. "Right after we have sex, you're always so good, and then a few hours later, you just clam up again…"

"This has been a very hard time for me, Ventus," Vanitas growled. "You're throwing a hundred balls at me and expecting me to catch them all at once, and don't fucking say that it's because I should have improved ages a-"

Before his anger could mount, Ventus slapped him in the shoulder and told him to raise his arms.

On sudden inspiration, Vanitas leaned on one hip, lolled back his head, and stretched out his palms like a sacrificial lamb. Ventus scoffed behind him and massaged soap under his arms, tickling up and down his sides to make him laugh. As his hands hovered to his hips, he leaned into Vanitas' ear and whispered, "I've had the best sex of my life this week."

Vanitas glanced over his shoulder in surprise. "Why?" he whispered.

Ventus gave a mischevious wink and shrugged.

Vanitas rolled his eyes. "Because I'm not the one doing the penetrating?"

"Oh, gods," Ventus groaned. "No, because when I'm inside you it seems so... natural! Like that's the way it was always meant to be."

"Hm. Feels the opposite to me," Vanitas muttered.

"Well, from the look on your face, it seems like it feels pretty damn good," Ventus huffed in vexation.

Vanitas opened his eyes and mouth wide and pushed his tongue down as far as it would go, just beneath his chin, grimacing at the shower faucet overhead to hide his vehemence.

"Stop with the fucking jaw," Ventus rose behind him, rubbing down the sides of his face again. "I can see your veins popping from the back of your neck."

"Sometimes you make me want to punch a wall, Ventus," Vanitas hissed. "Aren't expressing emotions good? Why can't I ever be angry?"

"Because you're angry all the time."

"Well I have some pretty good fucking reasons to be angry."

"I am all for expressing emotions, Vanitas," Ventus insisted knowingly. "But sometimes I think you've disengaged all the other ones and hotwired yourself straight to tear-the-motherfucking-world-down."

"What, would you rather I cried whenever I felt upset?" Vanitas hissed. "Would that make me more palatable to your social life?"

"Yeah, it would, actually," Ventus muttered. "But if you went to a therapist like I suggested, they could come up with a healthier way of expressing how you feel."

"Ventus, I told you how I feel about shrinks, just let me do things in my own fucking time-"

"Well time's running out, Vanitas-"

"I know!" Vanitas bellowed over his shoulder, relaxing and rubbing his face down with his hands. "I know. I want this to work just as much as you do. I am sorry I didn't start changing till now, okay? Minerva…"

"Can you look me in the eye when you say that?" Ventus asked.

Vanitas' shoulders sagged in exhaustion. Ventus' demands were wearing him thin. But, mustering the last of his goodwill, he turned and glared into Ventus' sweeping blue eyes. "I am sorry I broke my promise to change," he intoned, water clouding his vision again.

Same old, same old. Self evisceration for the baby god's veneration. He was pretty sure if someone opened him up, the threads of his heart would reach right through his startling amber irises, strands floating before his vision like anemones, igniting and flooding whenever his and Ventus' stares met. "But even though I messed up, I was as much a kid as you were, and I deserve a second chance as much as any one else. So I'm taking it now, and you should know, I have been trying really fucking hard these last two weeks not to blow my fucking top off…"

Vanitas didn't know if he was desolate or incensed. He was seeing red and blurring up at the same time. Then he felt Ventus' hands uncurl his fists. His mouth kiss his jaw. He relaxed and sniffled, tears spilling over his cheeks. "I am very worried about my job and living situation," he whispered. "If I can't pay this month, I'll be evicted."

"If you get evicted you can live with me," Ventus suggested.

"I can't do that," Vanitas groaned. "Your dad loathes me."

"He wouldn't leave you high and dry."

"And my trial…"

"I'll help you figure it out," Ventus beamed. When his soap slick hand slipped between Vanitas's legs, Vanitas reached for Ventus' shampoo and rubbed it around his head, relishing in the blond tresses as the baby god caressed his thighs.

"You'll be away at college with your number one fan…"

"Oh, come on, Vanitas," Ventus sighed.

"You said you fantasized about him multiple times."

"I didn't say multiple times."

"Well, it was implied. You said you got close. And if you got close on a one month mission trip, I can't imagine what you'll be like once you go to college together."

"Couples always grow apart when relationships go long distance," Ventus whispered. "It takes a lot of work to hold things together. If you want this to work, we've got to leave in good grace, I've got to hear from and see you often, which you are terrible at taking seriously, and I've got to know that you're working towards a future we can share."

"Okay," Vanitas nodded, relief stilling his heart for the first time in what felt like ions.

"But we've got to set ground rules," Ventus warned, clutching his palm in indication of his conditioner and cleanser.

Vanitas grabbed the conditioner and kneaded it into Ven's roots, smirking as the baby god breathed in contentment and lolled his head back.

"Honest compromise during sex," Ventus started in a slur.

Vanitas snorted. "As long as it's true compromise."

"You working on focus," Ventus added.

Vanitas grimaced and kneaded harder, rinsing the conditioner out before moving on to cleanser.

"Anger management, going back to school, getting involved in the community."

"Minerva, this isn't a fucking college application, Ventus," Vanitas whispered.

"Those will probably be conditions of your release, anyway," Ventus shrugged. "Also, ending toxic friendships and widening your circle. I cannot be the only person who's safe from getting my face smashed by you."

"You're not the only one," Vanitas chirped. "My old boss and my mother."

"You haven't seen your mother for ten years."

"Seven."

"Whatever. Just try opening up to people. If you treated meeting strangers as chances to connect instead of proving your dominance, you'd be seraphic."

"Huh," Vanitas blushed.

"And you're so smart and funny and caring when you want to be," Ventus whispered. "I wish everyone could see that. That's the only reason I kept messing with you when Sora was here. I didn't mean to make you feel like an animal. I just wanted him to see that you weren't a threat."

"Well, you grabbing my ass, tugging my hair, and cooing at me like a fucking infant the whole time just emasculates me-"

"If it takes emasculation for a couple hours to make Kairi safe from pissing herself in your presence, I'll risk it," Ventus said low.

Vanitas rolled the cleanser over Ventus' shoulders, down his back, under his arms, and around his crotch.

After washing hands, Ventus gasped, remembering their faces. He took a dab of his facial cleanser and smeared it in a widening halo around Vanitas' nose. Vanitas did the same to him. When they rinsed off, Ventus kissed Vanitas' cheek and turned off the water around his hip. Then he stepped out and toweled off, toweling Vanitas after. Instead of letting the darker boy tromp into his bedroom to nap, he took some moisturizer and smeared it around his face, grinning as the boy growled in displeasure.

"I'm saving you from wrinkles," he cooed. "You should put on sunscreen, too."

"Mph," Vanitas muttered as he escaped into his bedroom, tipped forward, and plopped onto his mattress stomach first. He stretched himself out like a starfish and relaxed, closing his eyes. He heard Ventus clattering around the sink and spraying weird stuff that smelled from across the room. Probably perfume and hair and body spray. When he felt some spray over his back, he kicked up his leg and caught Ventus in the side, making the boy yelp and fall on top of him.

Ventus had forgotten to towel off his stomach properly. The wet skin on Vanitas' back was wonderful. He reveled in it as he drifted off. When he felt Ventus kiss down his spine and around his ass and thighs, he groaned and shoved him away with his foot. "Ventus," he moaned sleepily. "The fuck, let me sleep."

"We're meeting Sora in two hours. He just texted."

"'Xactly. Plentyoftime."

Ventus' breath stilled as his lips traced Vanitas' entrance.

"Vanitas, aren't you hungry?" he breathed against the sensitive skin. "You haven't eaten anything in like, two days, now."

"Don'tmentionitandIwon'tbe," Vanitas slurred into his pillow, moaning as Ventus' tongue flickered inside him. Too tired to protest, he slumped further into the mattress, letting himself pant and sound off whenever Ventus made him feel good. Just when he was getting close to a blissfully dreamy climax, Ventus' tongue disappeared. The bad feeling settling in the pit of Vanitas' stomach compounded when the tip of Ventus' dick replaced it.

"Ven…" he groaned. "Fuck off."

Ventus' hand kneaded over his spine, hips, and the dimples in his back like sea trawlers, digging up sensations and soft moans from places Vanitas couldn't recognize.

"I feel really good about this time, Vanitas," Ventus whispered. "You can lie back and relax. I just want to make sure you're completely released for our dinner out. I'll give you a big treat afterwards if you're good."

"Thissituationfeelsfamiliar," Vanitas breathed, refusing to budge. His toes curled of their own accord as Ventus rubbed him inside with cold liquid. He hovered so close to the edge of climax he could feel the shadow of his orgasm creeping up whenever Ventus touched him. Suddenly, the boy's body plopped on top of him again; erection nestled firmly against his entrance. Then, slowly, it pressed inside, moving past Vanitas' first sphincter, and then his second, bringing him to climax almost immediately.

His body was getting used to this way too fast. The way it acted even seemed like it was looking forward to it. It snuggled around Ventus of its own accord, begging him deeper and stretching unabashedly to make room for him. Vanitas' back arched ever so slightly as his mouth opened. A deep snarl escaped his throat, muffled by his pillow. He relaxed further, sizzling down into a rich sea ripping from his center to the tips of his toes and the hairs on his head. He shivered and chattered his teeth, rolling his hips as Ventus rubbed down his arms and quickened his strokes.

"You're getting so much better at responding, Vanitas," Ventus whispered. "Gods, you've never been so sexy."

If Vanitas was listening, he might have taken it as an insult. But in this weird, pleasurable place nodding towards sleep, his body lulled him into generously overpowering waves. His second climax rumbled much stronger, like the assault of a devastating swell after being sucked into the surf. It flew his eyes open and made him gasp, lifting him up to his hands and knees and arching his back again, pushing a louder cry from deep in his abdomen.

Ventus knelt behind him and thrust faster, digging his hands into Vanitas' hips. When he gave a mischievous smirk and slapped Vanitas across the ass, Vanitas cried out and buried his face back in his covers, letting his ass nod up and roll into Ventus' touch as he curled his fingers around his sheets. When the third climax came, he arched up so far his head nearly touched Ventus' chest, mouth widening and screaming towards his moldy ceiling in ecstasy.

"Fuck, ah, Ventus, HARDER!" he bellowed, digging his fingers down his wall.

Ventus complied and hammered into him, making his toes curl again as wave after wave crashed over him. He screamed so much he couldn't hear himself anymore. When Ventus snarled and swiveled him around to face him, Vanitas glanced about wildly without seeing anything. When he settled on Ventus' glistening, golden form and luxurious blue pools, he shut his mouth, arched into the wall behind him, and shot straight up, so far it hit the ceiling. The rest sprayed around them like rain.

Ventus roared as he finished.

Vanitas could feel it inside him, sending him through the floorboards and deep into the earth again. As he lied in the center of his mattress and ravaged covers spinning in circles, Ventus' voice echoed in his head. A dazzling, pearl white half circle bobbed like a frosty kaleidoscope before his nose. When it disappeared and something soft touched his lips, he came to and blinked around blearily.

Soon, Ventus plopped beside him and snuggled against him, bursting with blushing delight. "You are officially a power bottom," he sang, kissing all over Vanitas' face, worshipping his skin and the bones and organs beneath like the Ronso had always wanted. But Vanitas couldn't appreciate it the way he desired. He was suddenly so exhausted, so trapped in Ventus' embrace, that all he could do was fall asleep in the baby god's arms and hope never to wake up again.

 **•••**

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 **Please FOLLOW, FAV, and REVIEW. I love hearing from you all.**


	7. Dinner With Friends

**A/N: a few people wanted it, so here it is. T.T Ugh, I wish this story got more love because I enjoy writing it... but it just takes so much fucking effort AAAAH.**

 **Anyway. No promises, I'll write when I can/feel like it. Send love, well wishes, and predictions in the comments. How bad do you think this dinner date with the DI trio will go on a scale of 1 to 10?**

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 **•••**

 _ **Chapter Seven:**_

 _ **Dinner With Friends**_

 _ **•••**_

Vanitas remained in a pleasant daze all the way through the first half of dinner, oblivious when Kairi avoided sitting next to him and Ventus joked about cooling him down before bringing him out. When Riku growled that he should have leashed him for good measure, Vanitas nodded along and gave an encouraging laugh that made the silveret sweat from nervousness. When Ventus clutched his thigh, Vanitas leaned towards him instinctually, asking if anything was wrong. Ventus rolled his eyes and said that he was going to the bathroom.

"Wanna come?" he asked Vanitas.

Vanitas shrugged and decided that he did need to piss. As he strolled into the men's room and found an empty urinal, Ventus slipped in beside him.

When it became apparent that only the two of them were inside, Ventus leaned forward and pecked Vanitas' shoulder.

Vanitas snorted and shook, zipping up and washing his hands.

"I don't remember you ever washing your hands until you met me," Ventus chirped. "Thank gods I'm finally rubbing off on you."

"Ha ha," Vanitas muttered, propping his palms against the sink counter and leaning forward to stretch his spine. Ventus' hand was on his back immediately.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" the blond asked with concern. "I went kind of hard towards the end."

"No, I'm miraculously pain free," Vanitas muttered, patting his face down with cold water to stop the blush creeping across his cheeks. Finally, he felt sentient again. Embarrassment was snuggling in already. His brows were forming that familiar, subconscious scowl.

Ventus watched him as he toweled off. Then, forsaking silence, he blurted out, "Did what I said about you being a power bottom bother you?"

Vanitas reeled. "I didn't even realize you said that," he said flatly, staring at his reflection. He looked insultingly healthy: cheeks flushed, amber eyes almost jewel like in the way they sparkled, lips plump, skin radiant. He scowled at himself and averted his gaze. When Ventus stopped him from leaving with a firm hand, he grimaced in expectation.

"You're ashamed of yourself, aren't you?" Ventus whispered, having the gall to be dejected. "You're ashamed you enjoyed it so much."

"Well, maybe you should be ashamed, too, since you fucked me in my sleep," Vanitas snapped.

Ventus' eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "Are you fucking kidding me? I asked you-"

"I never said yes," Vanitas cooed maliciously.

"Well you never fucking said no and you're a big boy," Ventus snarled. "Which is more than I can say for your first time with me-"

"So how many more times do you get to wiggle inside me when I'm not in the mood, for us to be even?" Vanitas snarled.

"Fuck you," Ventus scoffed. "I wish I could have taken a video. You were begging me to go harder."

"Yeah, thank fuck I didn't lose interest half way through and just conk out," Vanitas beamed. "I would have gotten a whole thirty minutes more sleep, how fucking lame would that have been?"

"A person who was actually okay with themselves and not still trying to hold on to some stupid ideal that never fit them in the first place would be thanking me right now," Ventus muttered with back turned.

"You're so fucking narcissistic," Vanitas cut in reply.

"And you aren't?" Ventus bellowed, swiveling on his heel and choking to silence just as the bathroom door opened and his Spirian friend stepped inside.

"Uh…" the brunet gulped, looking from Ventus' trembling lip to Vanitas' glower in hesitation. "Is everything alright?"

Vanitas stood with his feet shoulder width apart and flexed his arms, shaking himself off to force himself to relax. He massaged his jaw like Ventus told him to. Then he shook his head and muttered that everything was fine.

"Ventus doesn't look fine," Sora murmured pointedly.

Nearly all of Vanitas' progress flew out the window when he saw how Ventus sniffled luxuriantly.

The honey blond was putting on a fucking show, making Vanitas out to be some abusive freak for the doe eyed deserter's pleasure. He could be so manipulative sometimes it was sickening.

"Ventus, stop showing off," Vanitas growled.

Ventus grimaced. Then he turned to Sora and said that Vanitas was hurt because they hadn't fully established consent when they'd had sex the hour before. "He feels like I've assaulted him," he worded with a cool, unruffled glance Vanitas' way.

Vanitas stomped to stifle a whine, blushing as he insisted he had never said that. "I just said that it could be _interpreted_ as nonconsensual because I never said yes."

"I guess I should have made you _ask_ for it in light of what happened to you a couple days ago," Ventus cooed in return, surprising and vexing Vanitas at the same time. "It was stupid of me to-"

"I, I really don't want to know the specifics," Sora interjected, holding up his hands in firm pleading. "I'm really glad you guys are open about this kind of stuff, but… I really didn't ask for this in the middle of my meal. Um…" then he gave an awkward grin and pointed to the stalls. "I'm going to, uh… go to the bathroom now." Then he stepped inside.

Ventus and Vanitas turned to each other; Vanitas deflating and whispering that he was just feeling conflicted.

Ventus huffed and rolled his eyes. "Then why didn't you just say that in the first place instead of starting a fucking fight," he whispered. "You pick the worst times to settle random shit."

"I wouldn't call what you did random," Vanitas insisted.

"Well, what goes around comes around, Vanitas," Ventus responded in a low voice. "Everything I've done to you these past few days, you have done to me _multiple_ times."

Suddenly, a fart came from the stall Sora was in. Vanitas and Ventus glanced towards it in surprise.

The stall grew silent. Save for the scuffling of a pair of feet, one may have suspected no one was in there at all.

Ventus and Vanitas glanced towards each other. Then Ventus clapped his hand over his mouth and pressed his forehead against the sink to stop himself from bursting into laughter.

Vanitas snorted and grinned above him, putting his head down and sucking in a chortle. When another, almost inaudible fart came from the stall, Ventus snorted loud enough to be heard.

"Guys, could you just talk outside?" Sora railed in a high-pitched voice.

"Sorry, bud, better out than in, right?" Vanitas sang.

Ventus' eyes widened as he grabbed Vanitas by the arm and doubled over in muffled laughter. The moment they got out of the men's room and into the restaurant hall, Ventus collapsed against the wall and howled. When Vanitas made a farting sound in his ear, the blond gasped and cried through another foot stomping fit, his hand shaking as he attempted shielding his lips. "Motherfucker," he gasped as he recovered, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

Vanitas leaned towards him, murmuring, "If I fart at the table, will you throw me out?"

Ventus collapsed again, clutching Vanitas for support as he made the darker boy cackle as well. As they stood swaying back and forth in stitches, the Spirian burst out of the bathroom with cheeks red from humiliation.

"You're a fast shitter," Vanitas announced, receiving a slap to the back from Ventus and more muffled laughter.

"Well, I hope you two got a good chuckle," Sora said with trembling lower lip.

"I'm so sorry, Sora," Ventus whimpered, "I'm a two year old."

As the baby god repeated apologies, Vanitas patted his head and cooed in his ear.

Ventus swatted him away with a grin. Then, the trio returned to the table, Sora leading the pack with head held high despite his tattered, broken pride. Vanitas watched his trembling, clenched fists in smug satisfaction. When his amber eyes drew up, they flashed.

Sora's friends sat at the circular booth with heads locked together, deep in conversation. When the girl, Kairi, noticed Vanitas coming, she froze and cowered into Riku's shoulder. Vanitas' lip curled as the silveret rubbed her arm protectively.

Muttering, "hold on," Vanitas lowered behind their booth. Then he jumped over the side and slipped right in, making the silveret jump and Kairi yelp in fright.

Ventus scowled as he slipped in beside him, making room for Sora after. He pecked Vanitas' ear and clamped his hand around his shoulder possessively, snuggling against him like a shackle. When the muscle of Vanitas' jaw tensed, he stroked his jaw.

Suddenly, as Vanitas stared into the wine glasses lining the table, he got the image of a zookeeper attempting to tranquilize a pacing tiger. Now he understood why Ventus kept touching him, grabbing his ass, stroking his hair, and playing with him incessantly. It was as if to say, _don't worry, everyone. On his own, he's dangerous, but with me, he's practically docile. He can't attack you if you're petting him_. Glumly, he leaned over and rested his head against Ventus' shoulder.

Ventus perked up in surprise. The wrinkle of his cheek above Vanitas' forehead told him he was smiling.

Had the monster done something right?

"Well, you really know how to calm a perp down, inspector," Riku half snapped, half chirped.

Ventus squeezed Vanitas' palm below the tablecloth. "He's just off in space, again," he cooed close to Vanitas' ear, sending the ravenet a warm smile. "I wish I could figure out what goes through your head when you do that."

"You already do," Vanitas deadpanned.

Ventus shook his head. "Not when you're like this," he murmured. "When you're emotional, I can read everything. Your body is like a glass window to your soul."

"That's not incredibly unsettling," Vanitas muttered.

"But when you daze off, you go into a trance," Ventus continued over him. "I can't read you at all."

"Sora does that, sometimes," Kairi peeped in a soft, cautious voice. "Riku, as well. But you can usually tell what's on his mind..."

"Yeah, when we were building the raft," Riku explained, "we were all these ponderous enigmas."

Vanitas tried an encouraging laugh that came out as mocking. When Riku glowered at him, he gave up and snuggled closer between the seat back cushion and Ventus' arm.

"Half those times I was just sleeping with my eyes open, guys," Sora barked with glee. "You all thought I was having intense thoughts, I was just napping."

Laughter descended over Sora and his friends like nostalgic, sunshine rain. Their reactions were lightning fast, but so filled with memories. They were neighbors to each others' thoughts, peeking through the fogged, rainy glass of each others' windows and winking at each other, knowing exactly where each person stood and exactly how they felt. All poured from the same glass pane.

When Vanitas searched for the same glint in Ventus' gaze when they met eyes, he came up short. A pang sliced through him more terrible than any he had ever felt.

"Vanitas used to get really bad insomnia when he was younger," Ventus announced, too engrossed in his Destiny Islands friends' camaraderie to notice Vanitas' withering stare. "He'd fall asleep with his eyes open at random times during the day… actually, you looked pretty demonic."

Vanitas winced and muttered thanks as Kairi let out a giggling laugh. At least someone was starting to have fun.

Ventus bathed in the laughter and wiggled in his seat. "He'd get all slack jawed, and one eye would roll down and the other would stay a little higher," he continued, "And he'd lean forward so that he had these dark shadows around his eyes, it was rich. I'd whisper in his ear and he'd mumble."

"Seems like messing with me in my sleep _isn't_ a new development, huh?" Vanitas chirped through biting consonants.

Ventus jolted but quipped through a grinning, gritted smile, "well, I learned from the best, _baby_."

Vanitas scowled and snuggled so low he threatened to slip under the table. To avoid completely resembling an infant, he forced himself to sit up straight and beam. When he saw Ventus' response, he realized he probably just looked creepy. 'Demonic,' as his keeper had so lovingly described him. He gave up again.

"What would he mumble?" Riku goaded.

Kairi peered around Riku's arm with the same cautious curiosity that moved her whenever she neared Vanitas emotionally or physically.

"Oh, just nonsense syllables," Ventus shrugged. "Although _one_ time…"

"This waiter is so fucking slow," Vanitas announced, scouring over his menu for a good starter. Was it too early for a cocktail? Ventus would kill him if he drank. _No booze for the mental patient_ , he commanded himself, bitter with pique. And he was broke, too, so meat was off limits. What he wouldn't do for a heaping, bloody steak…

His stomach rumbled on cue.

Ventus cooed and patted him as if patting a pregnant wife. "Tiger's hungry," he winked. "You thinking about steak?"

Vanitas went scarlet, hiding behind his menu and a dismissive gaze.

Ventus caught it and giggled, playing with the fuzzies on the ravenet's neck again. "But, anyway, one time," he picked up with twinkling eyes. "He actually had a crush on _Terra_ at the time, though he never _ever_ would have admitted it…"

"Well, I have you to take care of all my admittances, don't I?" Vanitas simpered, each outburst an acid veiled plea to preserve his reputation.

"… And Aqua and I went up to him and Terra was down the hall and we made little origami horns and put them behind his head and when we asked him 'who does the little monster like,' he mumbled Terra's name," Ventus continued, sending Sora into overdone cackles, Riku into derisive snorts, and Kairi into infuriating, grating twitters. "And then he kind of mumbled, and like I said, Terra was down the hall, and he said, 'who's calling me?' and Vanitas snored and did the cutest little whimper, it was like a kitten begging for its owner."

"See, they're cute when they're asleep," Riku drawled with a knowing smirk, making Kairi and Sora nod around him.

Unfortunately, Ventus was so enthralled with his own storytelling skills that he wasn't aware Vanitas had turned to stone at his side.

"Well, almost all animals are cute when they're asleep," Kairi cooed from the table's other side. "It's when they're at their most vulnerable."

Vanitas stood up so fast he nearly took the table with him. As everyone gasped and the water and wine glasses toppled, he didn't chance a budge. Only when Ventus' eyes were secured on his towering, brooding form did he flinch.

"Order me water and soup of the day, babe," he winked, shooting a gaping, malevolent grin special to Kairi. "Don't get too creative with your orders. Dinner's on me, but have a little pity on my car situation."

With that, he leaned back and rolled over the booth cushion backwards, landing on his feet on the other side and firing towards the bathroom again. When he burst inside, he wrapped on all the stalls, took a quick sweep around, and after confirming he was alone, thrust his face over the sink and blinked at himself. A fuming, red-cheeked beast blinked back at him.

"We meet again, motherfucker," he growled at himself, pacing and watching his twitching reflection as if gauging an opponent. Gods, what he wouldn't give to sock someone right now. Just one fucking punch. Just one. He'd go for the head.

"Fuck!" he snarled, bottling a roar and settling for kicking the trashcan. It made a sickening crash against the bathroom tile, as it was aluminum instead of plastic. No doubt the whole fucking restaurant heard the explosion. He froze and tore his hands through his hair in anxiety, body shaking with rage as he paced from one wall to the other, chancing another gaze at his locked jaw every few moments.

He was pumping again. Not in a fighting or fucking sense, but this was just the same. He knew it by the way he veered around and around on perfect repeat, again and again until he was reduced to a machine, ready to strike should anyone come to check on him. Testing himself, he wrenched out of the cycle and clutched the sink edge. When he launched up the faucet lever, he heard a sickening crack. As water spewed out, little pools gushed around the lever's sides, running down the porcelain surrounding the basin. Vanitas groaned in terror and shut it off, earning another crack from inside the lever's plumbing. He moved to the next sink down and turned on the water as carefully as possible, using the cool gushes to pat down his face. When he was finished, he glanced at himself again; recreating the expression Ventus had said was "demonic." Under the bathroom's conservative overhead lighting, the shadows created by his lashes and brows deepened. His yellow eyes glowed. To his dismay, when he slacked his jaw and loomed close to himself, he flinched.

He scared himself.

He leant back and wiped away the melancholy washing over his cheeks. "Fuck," he whispered, hiding his head in his hands.

What was wrong with him?

When he chanced another gaze at his reflection, he saw himself at seven years old, chubby cheeks turned down, yellow eyes puffy from tears. A deep cut in his bleeding bottom lip. Hollow, amber eyes and wide, baby Ronso nose. Not yet fully formed. Already broken.

Without rage, that child would have long been dead. Face down in a shallow place. "Soft."

What would his father say if he saw him now?

Scowling and forcing himself to recollect, Vanitas slipped out of the bathroom and bobbed his jaw up and down, hoping to relax it on the way to the table. He jiggled his arms. Took even breaths. When he returned, he stood awkwardly at one end of the booth and grinned. The food had been set out.

Riku had ordered veal. He brandished the expense for Vanitas to see, a smug, falsely oblivious glance painting his pinking cheeks. It made Vanitas realize too late that for the Guado, there was no such thing as 'second impressions.' Much like Ventus' good friend Aqua, he would hate him forever. This veal was his pledge of honor.

"I see Riku did good by his instincts and treated himself," Vanitas said flatly. Then he nodded, brandishing a metaphorical olive branch. "I'm glad."

"It's not too expensive for you, right?" Riku chirped with feigned naïveté. "I didn't want to rouse your temper, but I've just heard great things about this restaurant..."

"Temper? Who, me?" Vanitas mugged, head cocked to the side with a dumb smile. Then, his expression flattened. "Nah. I just get sensitive when people mention my eyes-"

Riku gave a pompous snort before chomping down a slice of meat.

Vanitas ground his teeth but continued over his chewing, "but my joke about only paying for cheap food was uncalled for. I hope you guys got what you wanted most. I really want you all to have fun."

Kairi stared at him with an odd glance. She had gotten the soup of the day and water. So had Ventus. Sora got a burger and coke.

"Well," the girl started, losing her train of thought half way through. Then, she fired up with a glower of determination. "C-come in this way!" she insisted, indicating for Riku to get out of the booth so Vanitas could pass. "You shouldn't have to jump over the seat again."

Vanitas softened in shock. Then he turned to Riku.

The silveret blinked in equal shock before scowling and throwing down his napkin. He and Kairi scooted over until the way was free for Vanitas to slip in. Once everyone was reseated, they dug in.

After a short bout of silence, Kairi asked which of the islands Vanitas came from.

Sinking, he responded, "Between Lalotai and the Calm Lands. Near the mountains."

Sora and Riku gritted and hissed through their teeth.

"Fuck, Realm of Monsters?" Sora whispered.

Vanitas' jaw twitched. "No," he intoned. "I didn't say _on_ Lalotai. I said _between_ Lalotai and the Calm Lands. Base of Mount Gagazet, near the coast."

"Ohhh," Sora murmured. "That's the poor part, right? I think Lalotai was richer, but it was fucking _dangerous_ , dude, like, one in three chance of coming out in a body bag."

"Mhm," Vanitas muttered, wolfing down his soup.

"So, if you hadn't run away, do you think you'd be some drug boss in Lalotai right now? The Ronso make up a lot of Tamatoa's goons, right?"

"I don't know," Vanitas lied. "Last I heard Tamatoa had quite a few Spirians at his back, as well."

"Well, everyone has Spirians, we're practically everywhere," Sora snorted. "Untouchables have got to go _somewhere._ "

"I originally come from Radiant Garden," Kairi interjected, swaying the conversation to less caustic territory. "I cannot wait to go there again. I lived with my grandma until she got dementia, then the mayor of Destiny Islands needed a daughter-"

"You're the mayor's kid?" Vanitas asked.

Kairi fidgeted in discomfort but nodded.

Vanitas blinked in surprise. Seemed like he was surrounded by privilege. "Must have been a great childhood," he muttered.

"It was!" Kairi beamed, softening again. "I just recently reached out to my Radiant Garden family again. My granny's actually getting better. First time she recognized my voice across the phone in, well... forever, just a few months back! And recently she's been remembering things super clearly. They've got a world-class research facility right outside her door and she got on their experimental patient list a couple years back. It's nothing invasive, just different cognitive therapies and diet control, but it's been fantastic."

"Huh," Vanitas muttered. "My family never trusted doctors."

"Of any kind," Ventus sighed.

Vanitas stifled a grimace, averting his gaze and shrugging, "There was an old joke in Ronso along the lines of, 'if a Ronso goes in for a prescription refill and a Spirian goes in for an organ transplant, who's coming out of the hospital alive?'"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sora laughed. "That makes zero sense!"

"It means Ronso don't go to doctors, I guess," Riku snorted.

Vanitas' fist curled harder around his soupspoon, stomach railing in protest despite the fact that he had licked the bowl and the crumbs surrounding clean.

Ventus glanced over in discomfort, asking if Vanitas wanted any of his soup.

Vanitas shook his head.

"You want my bread?" Kairi asked.

"Kai, don't tell me you're on another diet," Riku groaned.

"They didn't have a gluten free option, what was I supposed to do?"

"Maybe just eat the damn bread, you're not celiac."

"But everyone's a tiny bit gluten intolerant, and if you have other allergies, it just makes them worse."

"Kairi, stop worrying about the spots on your face!"

"What? Just because I now possess the knowledge that allergies affect sebum and bacteria generation-"

Vanitas' stomach roared from what he liked to think was the banality of the conversation. When the Guado turned to him, rolled his eyes, and asked why the hell he had bought soup if he was starving, Ventus leaned over and murmured that Vanitas was on a diet, too.

"I am?" Vanitas goaded flatly.

"Hey! We should get some stuff to share around!" Kairi offered, holding up her wallet and grinning. "I call a big plate of fries and wasabi aeyoli! Vanitas, do you want a burger and shake?"

"Kairi," Riku whispered, gripping her elbow aghast.

Kairi dismissed him with a scowl and perked up instantly, chirping that they could even go to the local fast food shop to pick up a few cheap snacks. "We could get shakes and fries and take them to that outdoor cinema Ventus showed us last week!"

"You all went to a cinema?" Vanitas whispered, trying to conceal the shocked hurt in his voice.

Ventus had never taken him to an outdoor theatre, and judging by the blond's current blush, he had never intended to tell Vanitas about his secret outing at all.

"Strawberry, chocolate, or vanilla, Vanitas?" Kairi offered.

Vanitas stuttered, so disoriented that all he could do was shake his head. "No, I don't want anything," he intoned. "I feel sick. I need to take it easy. Better hungry than vomiting all over the fucking table," he added in a hiss, averting his gaze so he wouldn't have to look at Kairi's simpering pout.

"Oh, gosh, you weren't throwing up in the bathroom just now, were you?" Kairi gasped in concern. "Did you kick into a trashcan or something by accident? There was a lot of banging around. Oh, I'm so sorry, Vanitas..."

"Kairi, don't apologize to him," Riku insisted.

Vanitas ignored him and pondered the girl's words. They were better than the truth. Running with it, he shrugged and murmured that he hadn't gotten too sick and that no one needed to worry about it. But the damage was done. Kairi's hand was over her heart and her gaze was piercing Riku's temple and his plate like a laser.

Riku glanced down at his veal with a tiny, delicious waver of guilt.

"Why don't you get something light?" Kairi offered. "They must have oatmeal or something…"

"Trust me, Kairi, I'll feel better on an empty stomach," Vanitas cooed with palm raised like a martyr.

"Oh, no doubt!" Kairi gasped, nearly rocketing from her seat. "When we go back to your place, I can get a couple ingredients and make you milk tea!" she chirped. "I can do ginger with coconut milk. Oh! Or I could make you some salmon…"

"Kairi, Minerva," Riku muttered. "Why don't you bathe and tuck him in while you're at it?"

"I don't know, all that sounds pretty nice," Vanitas cooed in Ventus' ear, grinning when the boy rolled his eyes but attempted keeping a smile.

"I can make him all that stuff, guys," Ventus insisted. "I'm an excellent caregiver."

"Ah ha…" Vanitas drawled, receiving a pinch to the thigh that made him yip.

Kairi giggled.

Sora eyed Vanitas with bitterness and tore into the end of his burger.

When Riku and the Spirian were finished eating and Vanitas asked if anyone wanted desert, Kairi shook her head. "I saw this rolled ice cream place just down the road…" she suggested.

"Nirvana Fried Ice?" Ventus beamed. "Vanitas and I love that place!"

Vanitas chewed on his soupspoon for tactile distraction, pondering the absurdity of the suggestion in silence.

Ventus had been to Nirvana Fried Ice all of two times. Vanitas had shown it to him when they were going on a double date with Ventus' brother Roxas and Vanitas' coworker Zexion. When Vanitas remembered that it had been just after Roxas and Axel broke up, he tapped his foot in shock.

That had been a weird, weird date. Needless to say, Roxas fucked Zexion in Nirvana's bathroom and didn't say a word to him for the rest of the night. Vanitas had thought it was fucking hilarious, while Ventus led a valiant, night long effort to make Zexion not feel like sloppy seconds.

 _That could have been a beautiful friendship!_ Ventus had lamented when he and Vanitas drove home that night. The only reason the baby god had entertained the pairing was because Zexion was the only other person worldwide that Vanitas could call a friend. Formerly. Vanitas' one chance at companionship outside of Ventus' circle had been shot down by the baby god's fucktard of a twin brother. The irony was as delicious as the ice cream had been.

"Vanitas, stoooppp," Ventus whined, tugging Vanitas' ear to make him come to.

Vanitas shivered away in irritation, muttering that he was thinking of the first time he showed the fried ice place to Ventus.

"Right! When Roxas and Zexion…" Ventus faltered, eyes widening as Vanitas caught his glance.

"Yup," Vanitas encouraged, forcing a smile. "They didn't like each other much, huh?"

"Yeah…" Ventus recovered, diving in, "Roxas always had weird taste, though. Like that first boyfriend? Roxas was totally trying to copy you and I."

"Excuse me?" Vanitas hissed in disbelief.

Ventus scoffed over him, continuing, "like, I had _just_ introduced you to him-"

"A year after we started going out," Vanitas added.

"I had just brought home this delinquent," Ventus explained to Sora and the gang, "and my dad was furious, and then Roxas had to follow me to Vanitas' place of work so _he_ could pick up a delinquent, too-"

"The local gym being a prime delinquent pick-up zone?" Vanitas sneered.

"Come on, Vanitas, half of your coworkers were meth heads-"

"And you got angry at me for beating one up-"

"Vanitas, _stop_ ," Ventus warned in a low, strong voice.

What felt like the whole restaurant stopped speaking to stare. Kairi and Riku reeled back while Sora scooted forward with glee.

Ventus seemed surprised as well, blushing and blubbering, "I'm sorry, Vanitas, I just…"

"It's fine," Vanitas responded in a clip, clamping his arms like vices around his chest, "I was starting a fight, again. My bad."

As the rest of the restaurant returned to normal, Ventus continued that once Roxas locked on Axel, he couldn't get his hands off of him.

"Did I ever meet Axel?" asked Sora.

Ventus shrugged and said he may have photo bombed one of their Skype sessions when Sora was speaking with Roxas.

Vanitas' whole body froze.

Photobombed their Skype sessions? Plural? As in, Sora and Ventus had "barely known each other for a semester" yet Ventus had already introduced the Spirian to his family?

"Axel wasn't the type of person you'd want in your life," Ventus rolled on in oblivion. "Roxas started getting depressed and his shrink told him he was suffering from isolation…"

"Did Axel isolate him?" gasped Kairi in horror. "Abusers do that."

"No, he isolated himself with Axel because he didn't like Axel's friends and he couldn't bring Axel anywhere because the guy was a total embarrassment. They were constantly sneaking around under our dad's nose and Roxas was reveling in letting Axel drag him down until he realized he didn't like playing in shit."

"Sounds familiar," Riku chirped, grinning as the waitress came by to ask for the bill.

Vanitas' fist slammed onto the table before he could stop it. Everyone in a fifty foot radius froze again as Vanitas stared Riku down, jaw clenched so hard it looked like painted steel. "What's so familiar about it, Guado?" he worded.

Riku sent him a brief, aquamarine glare before shaking his head and saying it was nothing.

"No, really, _Guado._ " Vanitas piqued with cocked, downturned head. His yellow eyes flashed through dark lashes. "Tell me what's familiar about it. I want to know."

"You hate it when people call you Ronso," Riku warned in reply. "So why aren't you calling me Riku?"

Vanitas' pectorals clenched of their own accord. His hackles raised. His vision drained crimson.

How lucky this stupid Guado was. If Ventus hadn't been rooted at Vanitas' side, the silver haired shit would have one less set of teeth.

"You have no respect for me," Vanitas continued in a croon, "so why should I respect you?" He finished the quip off with batted eyelashes and a sweet grin.

When all eyes at the table except his own and Riku's aquamarines cast down, he shrugged and held out his arms. "What?" he insisted, "Wasn't that little 'familiar' jab aimed at me? Or does Kairi have some deadbeat boyfriend I don't know about?"

"Vanitas," Ventus hissed.

Vanitas' voice rose of its own accord.

"Because I don't know much about you guys," he shrugged. "I don't know much of anything about you because Ventus never told me about you. He never told me he started talking to Sora, even though they must have gotten close in a pretty short space of time if Axel was already photo bombing their Skype chats before February. You know what's _super_ hilarious, too?" he added, turning to Ventus with a gushing, spacious giggle. "You used to call Sora 'this guy from my summer program'! Like you two didn't know each other until last month! Little did I know, the two of you were mounting a fucking civil rights revolution in my own fucking country for an entire semester!"

"If you turned on the news you would have seen the marches being covered," Ventus shot back. "But you don't watch the news, do you?"

"No, I don't," Vanitas sneered. "I prefer to interact with the real world instead of hiding in front of a fucking TV."

"Oh, that is fucking rich," Ventus leaned back against the booth in bitterness, lip bitten so hard it started to bleed.

Vanitas wanted to feel guilty, but at this point, it was impossible. "So what did you guys do to repeal that amendment?" he asked the entire table in a bright, singing voice. "Leave a bunch of voicemails for the mayor's secretary to delete? Make Kairi bribe him into signing off? Fuck each other on the front steps of town hall in solidarity for all the poor fucktards itching to sodomize each other in the light of day?"

"Oh my gods," Kairi choked in shocked disgust as Sora piped up, "these people have languished under the leftovers of colonial rule for centuries in an arcane, cultural dictatorship that a person with your attitude wouldn't understand the first thing about-"

"Don't you dare tell me what kind of person I am, _deserter_!" Vanitas thundered, punctuating the last slur in its most brutal grammatical form as he rose over Sora like a looming volcano.

Sora choked in tearful rage, biting his trembling lip in vain as he struggled to come up with something in reply.

In an instant, everyone was standing. Kairi wrenched Riku back as Ventus separated Vanitas and Sora with firm hands. A waiter was over seconds later, whimpering in a small voice that if they disrupted the establishment any longer, they would have to be barred from attending ever again. When Ventus tried protesting, Vanitas leapt over the table back and stalked towards the waiter while continuing to speak over his shoulder at the rest of the table.

"Don't kick them out when it's my fault," he snarled, digging in his pocket and pulling out a crumpled hundred he had intended to buy pot with later on. He slapped it into the waiter's palm and snapped that it would cover dinner. Then, he turned with an accusing finger.

"Understand this, Spirian," he snarled, channeling all his hatred into his voice to keep from pummeling the sniveling blue eyed wet rag to kingdom come. "Your mom didn't whisk you away from the Islands because of your dad. She whisked you away because she knew you weren't strong enough to make it another day without ending up face down in some ditch with an oar up your ass. Because _that's_ what _my_ people do to pussies like you. And for all your uniting and marching and standing in front of town hall with my fucking boyfriend, you will never e _ver_ be one ounce the islander I am. That's the gods' truth."

Sora lowered his face into his hands and sobbed. When Riku tried advancing on Vanitas and telling him to get out, Vanitas puffed up his chest and raised his brows in challenge.

"Unless you want to leave this restaurant with your arms down your throat, Guado, I suggest you back the fuck up." he warned. "You'll never talk or walk again after I'm finished with you."

With that, he swiveled on his heel and barreled out the restaurant door, reveling in the night breeze as he left everything, including Ventus' shattered gaze, far behind him.

 **•••**

* * *

 **A/N: What's going to happen to VenVan now? Follow, fav, and review to find out!**


	8. Penetration

**A/N:** **waywardred, thank you so much for your reviews! I really appreciate it. It's terrible when real life gets in the way of writing fan fiction- if that was my job, I would be one happy gal! Lol T.T**

 **Warning: Intensity, alcohol, explicit sexuality, profanity.**

* * *

 **•••**

 _ **Chapter Eight:**_

 _ **Penetration**_

 _ **•••**_

Vanitas tore his fingers savagely through his hair on the way home, gritting his teeth as the tatters from his Jeep's torn canopy whipped against the back of his neck. With each caress of canvas, a new memory whispered in the back of his mind, playing with the fuzzies on his neck like Ventus had grown accustomed to doing in just a few short days.

Vanitas did not like change. It made him uncomfortable. On edge. Nervous. Vulnerable. Frightened. The emotions crawled up his throat and threatened to suffocate him, the bile of their desperation pouncing up his stomach with each bump on the road. He wiped savagely at his nose, bringing back glistening clear snot. Again, it felt like his brain was melting down his sinuses. The flap of his broken roof overhead wasn't helping. He should have taken the damn canopy down the day he found it slashed in the parking lot. As his vexation grew, so did the speed of his pumping heart. His eyes widened. His vision drew red. His foot dropped to the accelerator.

A memory was coming back. One from Ventus' room, during Vanitas' bout of homelessness after overstaying his welcome: Ventus curled up and crying on his bed, Roxas in the doorway with phone outstretched, and Vanitas threatening him with outstretched palms. _You want me to leave, huh, Roxas? Huh, you golden headed ass wipe? Make me fucking leave. I bet you won't even make it past that door. Try it._

Had Vanitas really said that? The words were so clear now, but when he'd first recalled them last night they had been garbled, harmless mush.

 _I dare you. Go ahead. Try it. Try it. Try it, you little pug nosed fuck!_

This cry came from further back, deep inside distant memories Vanitas thought he had long lost. 'Pug nose' was as common a slur for Ronsos on the islands as 'fag' was for gays on the mainland, but it still hurt, and he had been so little back then, so powerless to defend himself. No matter how old or big or tall he got, it still hurt.

 _At least your pug nose doesn't get in the way when you're sucking cock, you wet faced fag!_

He pumped on the accelerator harder, black pupils constricted amidst a flaming sea of gold as the dial on the tachometer spiked and the engine rumbled. Sweat poured from his forehead, between his eyes, and around his neck. The broken canvas overhead clapped against him like a worn leather belt.

 _Try it, Roxas! Go ahead, you wet faced fuck! I dare you!_

Roxas had held his finger over the call button in desperation, his whole body chattering with fear as Ventus wailed for Vanitas to stop.

 _Just get him out! Get him out, Ventus!_

 _Get out! Get out, you little monster! If I ever see you in this house again, I'll kill you!_

Vanitas snarled as he wiped his dripping nose harder, the car swerving as he righted the steering wheel.

 _We love you baby, we do. You just need to change. Please change, baby, I can't take it anymore._

 _You always meet my expectations, don't you? You'll have to change, someday, my friend._

 _By then it's ingrained. The violence._

 _Please, Ventus, help me get him out!_

Vanitas' vision warped and tunneled until he felt like he was staring down the barrel of a crimson gun, the swish of trees and blaring horns silenced by the terrible ringing rattling through his ears. Paranoia crawled through him, seeping from the acrid bile searing through his stomach all the way into the valves of his heart, making his blood burn through his insides. He gasped for breath, clutching his chest and stifling a groan as he looked for signage that would lead him back to his apartment. There was nothing. No lights, no signals, no lanes, no road. Everything was a long, black hole.

When Vanitas really thought about it, the time in Ventus' bedroom had not been the first sign of the baby god's doubts. There were other flickers, clues or hints that at the time had stricken Vanitas as unfortunate, quick blips on their brotherhood. Now, they echoed like harbingers: single, sorrowful magpies, black cats, and ravens crossing his path over and over whilst he strolled blissfully on, rumbling like a train towards the end of its tracks without a care as to where it might end up.

Ventus had told Vanitas never to meet or pick him up at school. He'd refused to introduce him to his family. He'd subjected him to the tail end of desperate, tearful conversations with friends and family, back turned but head rolling obsessively on its axis to see if Vanitas was within earshot. Flurries of, "you don't understand," "it's my choice," and "I promise I'll sort him out," along with slurs of "difficult," "different," and "changing" pinned Vanitas wherever he went, along with gazes of desperate longing whenever Vanitas said he didn't want to go on excursions with Ventus' friends.

Vanitas never attempted inspiring forgiveness, having long since learned that begging for affection was a recipe for misery. So why was he making a habit of it now?

Ventus' cries as Vanitas rammed into him against Xehanort's desk returned as well, mixed with echoes of desire and groans of ecstasy from every time they had become one after. Had Vanitas imagined Ventus' enjoyment? Had the blond been miserable from the time they first met?

Vanitas savaged his fingers through his hair again, cursing the trembling taking over his arms and legs and the chattering of his teeth. When he tasted blood, it reminded him of Ventus' nipples, bright pink at the center and haloed with mauve follicles, like the skin of a prickly pear fruit. The way Ventus panted when Vanitas fucked him behind the Fruit Ball Stadium when they were still in high school, the cheers of the patrons overhead masking Ventus' glorious, strangled moans.

What if it had been Vanitas, instead? Ventus' cum dribbling down the ravenet's swollen, crimson thighs, bronze cheek prickled by and tongue tasting the gravel lining the brick wall his face was mashed into, the smell of his own arousal and sweat mixed with the oil from the hot dog stands overhead and the detritus scattered around his feet. Timing his cries with the fanfare of each goal and the rumble of excited feet above. Shivering from the cold breeze against his bare back but studded with the warm marks of Ventus' pearly teeth and divine saliva. Wanting to take every inch of fabric off and throw it as far away as possible, to scream so loud that everyone could hear him, to turn, meet Ventus' eye, and shackle himself in his embrace as the baby god grinned against his lips and whispered, "this is new." To giggle without worrying if his voice was deep enough, to bite and lick his plump lips without fearing he was delicate, to relish his own body and enjoy it without confining it to correct movements and desires.

Every bit of that dream was still possible. It had been possible from the first moment he had locked Ventus' eyes. There was so much love waiting to bud between the two of them. All Vanitas had to do was open the door and jump through.

Ventus didn't have to tire over saving himself.

Vanitas would save them both.

The Ventus of his memory lay curled against his bed, hidden between the wall and pillows, averted from Vanitas' pleading gaze as Roxas paced the hall outside weeping. Vanitas was begging Ventus not to leave him. Ventus had to trust him, trust that he was changing, trust that he was taking invisible steps forward and that he cared about Ventus and wanted the best for him.

Didn't Ventus like how strong and careless Vanitas was? And look how beautiful Xehanort had made him! He wasn't a sniveling, pug nosed Ronso, anymore. He was a beautiful person Ventus could count on. Someone with a heart of steel. Someone who going out with was an adventure. Right?

Ventus had sobbed harder. Then, blue eyes resolved and bearing a glimmer of the dominance that would bud in him many years later, he shook his head.

 _I don't want to go out with you, anymore._

Vanitas slammed his foot on the break, stifling a cry as he swerved to avoid hitting a perpendicular, advancing car. Horns roared around him. He skidded and spun before bouncing up the center of the right hand turn median just shy of the adjoining traffic light; a big, orange 'yield' sign disappearing under his fender as his wheels wailed to a halt. The sign groaned and trundled below like cloven, clobbering feet. Commotion continued around him as he sat back, face frozen in shock. Soon, someone was pulling up to his side with his window open, signaling with flailing arms and a bright red face for him to roll down his window, too. Without thought, Vanitas did.

"The fuck you think you're doing?" the man cried in rage, flinging his right hand up in a mixture of dismissal and cursing. "There was a baby on board that fucking sedan! You fucking ass wipe!"

"S-sorry," Vanitas croaked, throat so dry he stifled a cough.

"You're off your face, you fucking goon," the man spat in disgust.

Vanitas ignored him and tried remembering how to drive, too disoriented to see straight. His hands were still shaking, but his heart beat felt normal and he wasn't sweating like he had been. When he clutched his stomach, though, he grimaced.

Driving his door open and leaning out, he wretched against the median in full view of oncoming traffic, gripping his seat back for dear life lest he topple into his own vomit. Ahead, his faithful observer yelped.

"Do you need a hospital?"

"No," Vanitas garbled, climbing back into the driver's seat and shutting the door with weak, trembling fingers. Where was a gas station? How far away from home was he?

"There's a gas station a block ahead," the man read his mind out loud, swearing at the cars beeping to get around him and signaling for them to go ahead. Soon, another person, this time a middle aged woman, stopped as well.

"What the hell happened here?" she barked. "Are you drunk, son?"

"Fuck off," Vanitas snarled under his breath, regaining enough self awareness to put his vehicle back into drive and move his toe from the break to the accelerator. "Just keep going. I'm sorry."

As Vanitas maneuvered himself over the crumpled 'yield' sign and jittered off the median, the man and woman swerved around him shaking their heads, the first signaling left towards the gas station closest before disappearing down the road.

Vanitas signaled left and merged, driving ten miles below the speed limit in utter silence, wincing against the uncomfortable clunking coming from beneath him with each wheel rotation and trying desperately to reorient himself. The gas station the man had suggested grew and then disappeared as he passed it by. When he realized where he was, he relaxed and kept going, turning right, then left and continuing down the highway until he came upon the familiar Seven Eleven near his complex. Taking a spot in as secluded and dark a corner as possible, he parked, shut off the engine, cut the lights, and leaned back in darkness. When the summer heat grew too strong inside the stifling interior, he drove his shirt and jacket off and threw them to the side, slumping down and closing his eyes. He sat for what felt like ages, refusing thought until he felt like a normal human being again.

"Fuck," he murmured, more like a prayer than a curse. Then, composing himself, he took the key out of the ignition, shoved open the Jeep driver door, melted out like cold soup, locked up, and stumbled like a corpse towards the entrance. Remnants of nervous jitters peeled through his extremities with each step.

The tinkle of the bell seemed louder than usual, making him train his eyes on the tiled ground and buckle in on himself in embarrassment as soon as he got inside. His Doc clad feet passed before him with the rhythm of his heartbeat: quick, clipping steps, one after other, until he reached the medicine section.

Aspirin or Dramamine?

Vanitas reached into his pocket for his hundred dollar bill. Then he realized he had used it to pay for dinner. Cursing, he swerved for the fridges and stuck his face into one on the pretext of picking a soda. In the interim, he thought he heard someone call his name.

Peeping around to see if he could recognize the shoes shuffling towards him, he broke from the fridge and lunged for the exit. Before he could escape through the sweet aisle, a strong, wiry hand took hold of his bare arm.

Where did his shirt go?

When Vanitas remembered he had stripped from the waist up on account of the heat, he blushed and gazed up with a wince, preparing to apologize for his indecency but forgetting words when he met the shop owner's worried blue eyes.

It was Cid. Why was he manning the counter so late?

"Cid, I'm really sorry," Vanitas whispered, holding up his hand in surrender. "It's been a weird night-"

"Are you okay, kiddo?" Cid asked, clapping his hand on Vanitas' shoulder as he looked him up and down. "You don't seem baked but you're acting like you just got hit by a truck. You got a cut above your eye."

Vanitas blinked in surprise, feeling his forehead to see if it was true. When he brought back blood, he reeled. His head must have been thrown forward when he hit the median. Or had he smacked it on his Jeep door as he vomited? Fuck if he knew.

"I'm... I'm a fuckin' mess," he crumpled sheepishly, hiding behind his palm as he pretended to sweep aside his hair. It tugged from his scabbing temple as he tried pushing the strands away. Cid's grasp on his arm was comforting.

"What happened, bud?" Cid asked.

"I just," Vanitas started, caving and adding, "I got into a fight with Ven's friends in public. Nice restaurant- kind of a 'meet the parents' deal. I'm low on rent and he's been riding my ass about being more responsible and a better person..."

 _Riding his ass_. Ha. Funny how literal that statement had become. Vanitas rolled his eyes in irony and continued, "It's just been a tough week, and... I keep fucking up."

"You're figuring shit out," Cid said in encouragement. "Your age was a time of transition in my life, too. Just means you're starting to really grow up. It's hard."

"Yeah," Vanitas muttered. If only Cid knew the specifics. Then he might be a little less sympathetic.

"Here, just take a few things on me," the old man called, patting Vanitas' back and lolloping back to the front desk.

Vanitas' mouth fell. "Seriously?" he whispered.

Cid winked and brought back up the newspaper he had been reading, telling Vanitas to take whatever he wanted.

Vanitas grinned in glee and popped back over to the medicine aisle, swiping a bottle of aspirin and asking Cid if he could get a cheap bottle of wine.

Cid grunted and waved him off.

Vanitas beamed harder and got a bottle of rosé, knowing Ventus would like it. Then he picked up some tea, a sandwich, chocolate, a water bottle, and juggled everything to Cid's side.

When Cid saw the bottle of Aspirin he scowled that if Vanitas took that, he'd have to put back a few of the less expensive items. "Bottle's about twenty dollars, kid!" he added in defense. "I got some Aspirin behind the counter if you need one now."

"Sure, I'll just take one of yours," Vanitas shrugged in delight, opening his water bottle and holding out his hand for Cid to pop a tablet into. After taking it, he waited while Cid got out a first aid kit and cleaned up his forehead. Then he collected his things, thanked the old man, and sprinted to the jeep, heaping his goodies in the passenger seat and revving up the engine.

Soon, the alleyway housing the entrance to his apartment complex's parking lot broke through the darkness in the distance. Vanitas swiveled towards it and rattled down the packed ground's way, avoiding a speed bump and a pine tree as he slipped past the dumpsters towards his usual spot. Parking, he wrenched the key out of the ignition, gathered his bounty, locked up, and launched up the fire escape steps two at a time, flicking through his keys feverishly and singing as he came upon the right one.

As soon as he was in his abode, he pushed everything but the sandwich and wine onto his kitchen counter and bobbed into the bathroom with cellphone in one hand and booze in the other, sweeping through his messages with Ventus to see if the blond had asked for him. The baby god was probably going nuts right now, wondering where he was.

To Vanitas' surprise, when he opened their conversation, there were no new messages. Pursing his lips, he sent Ventus a quick text saying that all his stuff was still at his house and that he would see him later. Then, pleased, he tore off his clothes and wrenched on the shower.

As the water warmed up, he opened his sandwich and popped the cork on the rosé. Ventus would probably rather Vanitas wait for him to be there to open it, but fuck it. Vanitas wanted a drink. He sat with his back against the tub side, ass on the bath mat, and feet sprawled across the tile as he munched, taking a swig of rosé whenever he felt thirsty. Then, feeling as full as he could on one sandwich in two days, he ducked around the curtain, scrubbed himself down, and relaxed under the spray.

Surely Ventus would want to fuck him when he got back.

Vanitas bit his lip and stepped out, leaving the shower running as he dripped from the bathroom to Ventus' open luggage, rummaging through it without qualm.

"Sculpting wax," he muttered as he took a big tub of pink, hardened goop out of the toiletry compartment. There was also a tub of peppermint scrub, no doubt part of Ventus' vigorous exfoliation regime. Vanitas loved Ventus' smooth skin.

Cackling, he pitched the scrub over his shoulder towards the bed, pinging the sculpting wax to its side before rummaging further. He rediscovered the Undercroft condoms and West Wing Lube, along with a strange bottle of perfume with odd, star shaped blossoms floating on the bottom. When he popped the cap and sprayed some on himself, he wrinkled his nose.

Paopu? Was it a souvenir from a Destiny Islands gift shop? Paopu was kind of a weird perfume to buy for yourself. Maybe Ventus didn't know the meaning behind it.

Blushing, Vanitas set it aside and dug further, gasping as his fingers closed around something suspiciously smooth, firm, and banana shaped. Its bright pink form was barely visible beneath Ven's meticulously rolled tops. When Vanitas brushed the clothing aside, its full form revealed itself.

A vibrator. Prostate stimulator, no less. The paint on the power button was sort of faded, meaning it was well worn.

"You little slut," Vanitas grinned to himself, biting his lip as he got a delicious image of Ventus pleasuring himself with it. An odd sort of longing followed, making Vanitas run his fingers over the vibrator's ridges in curiosity. How many times had Ventus had it inside him?

Placing that on the bed, too, Vanitas dug further until he settled on Ventus' favorite shirt, a pink T with _Thank U, Next_ sprawled across the front and Ariana Grande's tour dates on the back. When Vanitas pressed it to his nose and breathed in, he was surrounded by Ventus' scent. Sighing, he settled the shirt over his covers, returned to the shower, prepped between his legs, and shut off the water, taking another swig of rosé on his way out.

How did Ventus like his assholes? Waxed or unwaxed? Vanitas narrowed his gaze towards the tub glaring from his bed. Then, curious again, he swiped it up and read the directions, bringing it to the kitchen and turning on his electric kettle. When it boiled, he opened the wax lid and set the tub in the middle of a bowl of hot water, waiting for it to melt as he peered around his penis and pressed apart the skin of his thighs.

"Baby powder," he whispered, remembering the directions out loud. Whipping back to Ventus' suitcase, he found some talcum and patted it across his junk, tipping a little as he stood and returned to the kitchen. Then, with haphazard swipes, he smeared the melted wax on the tops and inside of either thigh, hissing when the viscous liquid burned his skin. He waited twenty seconds for it to dry. Then, flipping away a small flap at the edge for himself to grab onto, he bit his lip, sucked in a deep breath, and ripped the first strip off.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" he screeched, collapsing against the counter and fighting back tears.

Minerva, that was painful. Did Ventus do this regularly? Vanitas would never ask him to wax again. When was the last time Ventus even had hair down there? There was usually only a small fluff of blond along his balls, above his dick, and right around his asshole. Though come to think of it, recently it had been thicker.

Another link in the long chain of Ventus' recent changes, all invisible or unimportant to Vanitas until now.

He whimpered when he realized he still had three strips left to go.

When he got through all of them, he kneeled with his forehead against the kitchen tile and pressed his palms between his legs, hoping the pressure would somehow sooth his broken skin. Then, crawling back to the bathroom, he grabbed Ven's peppermint scrub and returned under the water, lathering the stuff between his legs and sighing as the mint cooled his skin. Two more healthy swigs of wine and he wasn't hurting at all.

Snickering his way to his mattress, he grabbed Ventus' shirt and circled it over his head, groaning in ecstasy at the feeling of its glorious cotton folds drifting over his chest and back. He imagined Ventus bursting in and seeing him like this: sprawled on the bed like a drunken starfish, entire lower half exposed and spread, soft and ready to be touched. Fuck, he'd never wanted Ventus more.

Crawling around for his phone, he found it on the floor beside his cardboard box of a bedside table. When he unlocked it, his expression fell.

Still no messages.

 _R U done with the Spirian yet?_

He paused before sending it. Too antagonistic.

 _Having fun?_

Too passive aggressive.

 _How is it going?_

What, was he a work colleague, now?

Vanitas scowled and plopped backwards against his pillows, heart rate spiking when the lights from a car flickered outside of his window. When he peeped through the blinds to see who it was, he sighed in dejection. Wrong car. The Islanders' rental had been a Prius. This one was bigger: one of those obnoxious hummers with blaring stereo and bouncing wheels. Its driver leaned out and called to someone who must have been at the entrance to the complex. Then, he relinquished, revved up, and rumbled into the distance. When darkness save for the street lamp returned, Vanitas relaxed against his pillow and checked his messages again.

There was a check mark beside the first text he had sent to Ventus after getting home. Delivered at eight past nine. Read at nine thirty. Now it was ten forty five.

Gut twisting, Vanitas shook his head and typed again, biting his lip and hitting send.

 _R U ok? Haven't heart from you in a while. Hope you're having fun._

Shit. He'd meant to write 'heard' instead of heart. Even in text he couldn't hide his thoughts.

He hoped Ventus was having the worst time of his life. He hoped he was driving to his apartment right now.

In five minutes Vanitas would hear a knock on his fire escape door and a soft, felt confession.

 _I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm sorry I didn't include you more. The truth is, I love you and I don't care who says you're not right for me. No one understands you like I do._

A little mawkish, but it still made Vanitas feel better.

Would Ventus like a picture?

Vanitas smirked and settled on the bed, picking apart the shards of his glass sharp hair to make himself presentable. He tried his best to cover the bandage over his right brow. Then he swept to instagram and turned on the camera, clicking on a wolf face filter with fangs, a snout, and furry black ears. Finally, he propped up the pillows behind him, settled himself back, and zoomed out the camera and hiked up his shirt just enough for Ventus to see the _Thank U, Next_ logo and Vanitas' abs and bare knees beneath.

Would Ventus wonder if Vanitas was wearing anything besides the top?

 _Wolf stole your top, #sorrynotsorry_ he punched beneath the video. In it he zoomed out, looked down at Ariana's logo, held up a peace sign, mimed growling, and stuck his tongue out and winked, yellow eyes glowing under his black hair.

Seconds later, it was delivered but not seen. Ventus' silence was beginning to drive Vanitas crazy.

Assault. Vanitas would most likely go to jail for assaulting Zexion. How long would he stay for? He couldn't very well lug around a felony conviction and a student's backpack at the same time. What would he say to Xehanort if the old man reached out to represent him in his trial? What if the old man didn't reach out at all?

Vanitas avoided thinking about what would happen to him with or without Xehanort's help. The lights in his apartment became oppressive, rendering the space more like an operating or interrogation room than a place to live. He shut them off one by one, curling onto his covers and shutting his eyes as tight as he could. It drove him into a fitful sleep. When he woke again, it was still dark. No cars were out. The world felt still as death.

He moaned and stretched, snarling against his baby hangover and wincing as he reached for his phone.

One hour later. Still nothing. Ventus hadn't even seen his instagram message yet.

Furious and hurt, Vanitas swept to his facebook and clicked on Ventus' profile.

No new posts since yesterday.

Cracking his neck, Vanitas tried typing in the names of Ven's islander friends. Spira, Guado, and Carrie. Of course those were wrong, but Vanitas couldn't remember what their real names were.

Sora. The chestnut headed ass swipe. That was one.

Feverishly, Vanitas typed 'Sora' into the search bar. A stack of people came back in the results, the first with the last name of 'Nomura' beside a picture of a tan kid with a stupid smile and a starfish suckered to his nose. When Vanitas clicked on the profile, his blood boiled.

It was the Spirian, alright. Over one thousand friends, a public profile, and an intro saying, ∆∆∆ _REPEAL THE 10TH! LGBTQ Islanders Matter! ∆∆∆_

"Repeal the tenth!" Vanitas mocked in a singsong, high pitched whimper, snorting and shaking his head in disgust.

There were albums upon albums of photos with so many different people it made Vanitas' head spin.

 _Everywhere I go, someone new touches my heart!_ read one, followed by a flood of group shots from some inane school trip back when Sora was fourteen. _My oldest mentors! Disney Middle School North ftw!_ captioned another from his middle school graduation. The cover photo was one of a pair of duck and dog faced men with name tags reading "Mr. Goofy," and "Mr. Don." Sora had his arms wrapped around both of their shoulders and a shirt that said, _World's Greatest Student._

"World's greatest student!" Vanitas mocked louder, swiping savagely to a more recent album and freezing in his tracks.

 _∆∆∆ REPEAL THE BIG 1-0 ∆∆∆_ it was titled, along with _our friends are our power!_ captioned beneath. The title picture was of Sora and Ventus, Sora with his arm around Ventus' shoulder and his lips smacked against Ventus' glorious, smiling cheek.

Talk about glow up. Ventus looked amazing. The picture was studded with likes, loves, shocked faces, and babbling comments from people Vanitas never knew existed.

 _OMG, Sora, who's the stud?_

 _You mean me ;P Jk, he's the leader of the Twilight Chapter. How have you not met him yet, I've been taking him, like, everywhere?_

 _Not here!_

 _Hi~ :))_

So Ventus had entered the chat.

 _OMG! The god himself!_

 _I want to meet you, mystery man!_

 _His name is Ventus!_

 _What's your sign?_

 _?_

 _Horoscope, duh_ _!_

 _I'm an air sign..._

 _OMG that is so perfect!_

 _Sora's an air sign, too!_

 _I'd say this is a better love story than Twilight, but since he is from Twilight High..._

 _Show us your fangs, Ventus!_

 _Sora, why didn't you bring back a hot Twilight guy for me, too?_

 _Ugh, stop being so cute together and come hang out with us all!_

Vanitas sat speechless, fuming and shaking. He wanted to comment so badly. Something nasty and petty, like 'sand fags,' or something equally vile and specific to the Islands. He knew all of the worst terms from where he grew up, things that would shock some of these prissy fucktards to death.

There were more pictures, all from the month Ventus had repeatedly reassured Vanitas he was only doing 'dumb club stuff' at Destiny High. For weeks Vanitas had nursed images of Ventus sitting in front of a computer screen working on Power Point all day, groaning and fiddling with speeches for marches. What assaulted him instead were a bunch of vacation shots with surfboards, speedos, dripping ice cream and sunscreen, shades, and trips to thrift stores, souvenir shops, and beach markets Vanitas could only dream of. The kids had even interacted with dolphins and stingrays. In every shot, Sora and Ventus were inseparable, Sora staring at Ventus' oblivious, distracted form with a longing so transparent he might as well have had a physical boner. Actually, in several speedo shots his trunks did look rather tight...

Vanitas scrolled back to the profile pictures and flicked through. The starfish one summarized Sora's entire personality: braindead, clownish, and desperate for attention. The endless comments of "cute!" and "so funny!" reeked of pity. Over five hundred people had liked it. How could one person even know five hundred people? It felt so false.

Through Sora, Vanitas found his friends, Riku and Kairi. They advertised their personalities well. Riku had pictures of martial arts medals, opponents, and mentors, along with shots of him acting like he didn't want to be around any of the numerous people invading his friend space. Kairi's profile was vomiting with inspirational quotes, cute selfies with facial filters, and advertisements for her Pinterest, Tumblr, and Etsy accounts, where she sold handmade charm bracelets.

Sick with revulsion, Vanitas returned to Ventus' profile, gluing his face to the screen in shock when he realized Ventus had changed his picture.

It used to be one of he and Vanitas from Ven's artsy bottom days.

In that old one, Vanitas had Ventus' head clasped under the pit of his right arm and a cigarette perched in his left hand, winking as he took a drag. _Thank U, Next_ was scribbled in sharpie across his naked chest. His black drainpipe jeans were soaked in sweat and spilled beer. His hair was drenched. Ventus screeched in delight in the picture, tripping with head faced down as he laughed, eyes shielded by pink heart shades, ear pierced with one dangling, green gemmed hoop, and an acid wash denim jacket threatening to swallow his lanky form. Barely peeking out from beneath its denim tresses was the pink top Vanitas was wearing right now.

That had been a wonderful night. Vanitas had surprised Ventus with Ariana Grande tickets for his birthday. They'd clambered their way to the pit and Vanitas had hoisted Ventus on his shoulders, cheering for the baby god when he caught one of the tour tops Ariana was blasting out of canons on either side of the stage. Ventus had worn it for the rest of the night, all the way until they were back in Vanitas' car, when it was discarded so they could fuck naked. Ventus had been _such_ a fucking twink back then.

That picture was gone now, replaced by a solo shot of Ventus winking and drinking a Pina Colada, his blue eyes icy lavender in the setting sun. When Vanitas read the date, he saw that it was taken just a few weeks ago. Tagged but not present were Sora, Kairi, and Riku. When Vanitas saw the amount of comments and likes, he blinked in stupor.

Over six hundred likes.

 _Whoa, when did my old sparring buddy turn into such a stud?_

Terra.

 _Ew, gross._

Roxas. How sweet.

 _OMG, VEN! YOU ARE SO FXXXING GORGEOUS, MY OVARIES JUST EXPLODED!_

Garnet? Must have been one of Ven's high school buds. Vanitas couldn't place the name.

 _Ventus! You look so grown up and independent :) can't wait to see what big things you do for the world._

Vanitas didn't bother reading that commenter's name. He knew who it was. Instead he clicked the icon on the upper right of his screen, sending himself to his own page. He hadn't visited his facebook in years.

He had twenty two friends. Shit. Down one hundred from the time he dropped out of high school. At that time he had passed for 'cool', especially to the lesser delinquents. His profile shots were few and far between, mostly of him smoking, skateboarding, and setting things on fire. There was a childhood school photo of him that he had scribbled the eyes and teeth out of and replaced with red marker horns and fangs captioned, _lock up your sons! Demon fag of Lalotai sighted in Twilight Town!_

Beneath it Ventus had commented, _Vanitas, don't post things like that!_

 _You gonna try and make me stop? ;P_ Vanitas had posted in return.

Ventus had never replied.

Vanitas leaned back and set the phone on his pillows, staring into the moldy ceiling above in wait. When his hand fell to the side, it touched Ventus' vibrator. Vanitas bit his lip as his fingers closed around and stroked it, fantasizing for the tiniest second that it was Ventus' dick.

Cracking, he grabbed his phone and punched in Ventus' number. Then, waiting for the dial tone, he begged for Ventus to pick up. When it went to voicemail instead, Vanitas stifled a fit and massaged his jaw, sniffing back tears and calming his breath lest he cry as he left a message. When the tell tale beep sounded, he coughed and gritted his teeth.

"Ventus," he started, "I know I really fucked up tonight but I really need you to call me. I'm really really sorry but please come home. I've got your shirt on. Do you find that hot? I'll leave it on until you get home. I'm glad you went out with your friends and I hope they're doing okay. Maybe someday... I can start over and actually get to know them. I love you. Bye." Then, he clicked the end call button, threw the phone aside, and picked the vibrator back up, sweeping his fingers up and down its soft silicone sides in hesitation.

Fuck. He couldn't take it anymore.

Swiping the lube from the top of Ventus' luggage, he panted as he heaped some into his palm and reached behind his back. Just those motions coupled with Ventus' shirt and the vision of his vibrator made Vanitas' penis rock hard. He groaned as he slipped one digit in, then two, and moaned on the third, digging his face into his covers and his ass into the air as he scissored them apart. His legs shook like jackhammers. Ven's shirt slipped to his shoulders and bared his nipples.

He imagined Ventus drifting in and freezing at the doorway. Then, his soft breath and hands as he caressed Vanitas' thighs. The thought made Vanitas bite his lip and whimper into his sheets, rolling his hips into his fingertips as if Ventus knelt behind him.

"Come home, come home," he begged, jamming relentlessly into his prostate until his back and shoulders were drenched in sweat and his tongue was lolling from his blushing lips. Just before he came, he trembled his way from the bed to the floor with the dildo in hand, positioning it beneath him so that he could sit on it. Then, wincing, he knelt down, throwing his head back and gasping as he felt it go inside him. The moment it passed both sphincters, he was gone, coming across the floor in violent, shaking spurts. He felt his way to the dildo's base and padded around for the power button, finding it and snorting in nervousness as he considered turning it on. He'd never used one before. Would it fly out of him the minute he switched it on?

Wincing, he pressed down, squeaking in delight when it began rumbling inside him. For several minutes it felt pleasant but kind of useless, like an internal masseuse. Then, when he leaned back so that the tip dug into the most sensitive part of him, he understood, biting the hem of Ventus' shirt and nuzzling into it to smell the baby god as he rode. One hand steadied the dildo while the other ghosted up his torso to rest over his nipples, palm kneading one as his fingers brushed against the other. Where did Ventus like doing this sort of thing? His room? The shower? Where had he done it in Destiny Islands?

Had he stayed in Sora's house?

"Fuck," Vanitas snarled, riding so hard he couldn't help but cry out with each thrust. If Ventus saw him now, he'd never hear the end of it. He'd ravish him.

Panting and groaning, Vanitas stumbled for his phone and exited facebook, blinking away the sweat in his eyes and going to his photo album as he thrust. Fuck yes, he'd kept all of Ventus' dick pics. There was even one with Ventus' asshole bared for the camera. Vanitas knelt beside it and imagined it with closed eyes as he rode Ventus' vibrator, biting back tears as he thrust so hard it hurt.

Something wasn't right.

He didn't want dick pics. He wanted a real photo. A recent one, of Ventus happy and confident.

Against his judgement he returned to Sora's facebook albums, blinking in aroused shock when he noticed a brand new one made thirty minutes ago titled _Summer Daze in Twilight Town._ They were all from just a couple hours ago: Ventus, Kairi, Sora, and Riku, all shoulder to shoulder, hopping from restaurant, to fast food joint, to rolled ice cream shop, to outdoor theatre in the space of hours. They had even gone to Twilight Lake and swam in their underwear in the dark.

Vanitas clicked out of that album and back to the one of Ventus vacationing in Destiny, flinging through pictures of him in nothing but a speedo and a small way finder necklace. He was divine in all of them, breaking through the surf like a golden siren, lounging on the beach barebacked, sleeping on hammocks, or exploring through the brush with a sparkling white smile, brilliant freckled cheeks, and those heartbreaking, sapphire blue eyes that drove Vanitas wild. Each passed so fast they blurred together into one, oppressive beige blot.

Then, one caught Vanitas' eye.

Ventus was perched atop a crooked paopu tree with Kairi at his side and Riku digging through the ground below. The picture taker must have been Sora. Ventus' head was crowned with a chain of anthurium and paopu blossoms: big white buds and tiny, pulsing red flowers that would bloom into swollen yellow fruit with mossy green leaves in the late summer. His blue eyes were heavy lidded, dripping with satisfaction and dipped in the molten gold of his skin, which shone with the slightest burn along his shoulders and the bridge of his nose. His expression was mischievous and unapologetic. Salt had dyed the tips of his sandy hair platinum. His lips were gentle, pink blossoms, free and beholden to no one. He was entirely his own.

Vanitas cried out as he came a second time, curling in on himself as if to hide from the thing still vibrating inside him. As soon as his orgasm, strong but empty, passed, he clicked off the power button, crawled into the bathroom doorway, and lied sideways on the tile, sighing in relief at the cold, hard feeling it left on his cheek. He waited until his breathing steadied. Then, picking himself up, he turned on the shower faucet, washed himself and Ventus' toy off, threw on some clothes, and stomped for the fire escape towards his car.

He tore into his Jeep like an animal, locking up behind him, revving up, and pulling hard onto the roadway as he checked his phone to see where Ventus was now.

According to Sora's facebook posts, they were all playing cards at their fucking hotel. Which one was it? They'd mentioned Starlight points, meaning they were probably staying at the Starlight Hotel at the edge of town. Vanitas would start there. What room were they in?

As if on cue, a new photo reading, _third floor balcony privileges!_ with a picture of the trio drinking wine from the minibar and shooting paper planes into the pool below, was added to the album. Fuck, was this Spirian stupid. Was he asking for Vanitas to barge in?

Harrumphing, Vanitas pulled onto the main road and sped up, pumping the accelerator in time with his heartbeat. He scanned the road back and forth in manic repeat, looking for cars, pedestrians, and cops over and over, way so dark that every flicker looked suspicious. Each scare made him gulp. Fear turned to acrid vehemence in his stomach.

A blaring shop sign rose in the distance. 7-Eleven.

Without thinking, Vanitas pulled into the same secluded corner he had inhabited earlier that night, parked, and cut the engine. Then, leaning back with a sigh, he paused and stared beyond the dashboard without expression.

At this hour, the world was so still. Comforting. The neon glow of Cid's shop was almost surreal and dreamlike in its fuzzy quality.

Suddenly, incomprehensibly exhausted, Vanitas struggled to keep awake. Surrounded by the dreamlike suspension of Twilight Town by night, going to the hotel at this hour seemed pointless. What would it accomplish besides making Ventus loathe Vanitas more than he already did? The baby god was in charge of his own desires. If those desires happened to hurt Vanitas, so be it...

Out of nowhere, a wiry hand slammed against Vanitas' driver window and made him roar in fright. When he realized it was just Cid, he gusted in disbelief but rolled the glass down, reeling when the old man leaned in towards him.

"Whatcha doin' back here again, kiddo?" Cid asked with anxiety hidden under a grin. "Ventus want more chocolate or something?"

Vanitas shook his head, croaking that Ventus hadn't come home that night.

"Seriously?" Cid gasped in concern. "Is he alright?"

"He's fine," Vanitas returned. "He just didn't want to come home."

"Oh," Cid responded, face falling. "I'm sorry about that, kiddo. Are... will you be okay?"

Vanitas opened his mouth to say yes. Then, shaking his head again, he whimpered, "no," hid his face in his hands, and choked through a sob. Cid's hand rubbing his back only made him cry harder.

"Hey, kid, kid," Cid crooned, gripping his shoulder and rolling his thumb forward and back over the beginning of his collar bone.

"I really fucked up, Cid," Vanitas wailed into his palms. "I fucked up so bad."

"It's alright, kiddo," Cid responded. "It's not your fault, it's alright."

How Vanitas wished that were true.

* * *

 **A/N: Poor Van :( FAV, FOLLOW, and REVIEW please!**

 **I love hearing your thoughts :)**


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